Class 

Book 

BEQUEST OP 

ALFRED L. M. GOTTSCHALK 



The Cambridge Manuals of Science 
Literature 



THE VIKINGS 



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CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introduction 1 

CHAP. 

I. Causes of the Viking movement .... 4 

II. The Viking movement down to the middle of the 

9th century . . . . . . .12 

III. The Vikings in England to the death of Harthacnut 22 

IV. The Vikings in the Frankish Empire to the 

founding of Normandy (911) . . . .43 

V. The Vikings in Ireland to the battle of Clontarf 

(1014) 54 

VI. The Vikings in the Orkneys, Scotland, the Western 

Islands and Man 65 

VII. The Vikings in Baltic lands and Russia ... 69 

VIII. Viking civilisation . 82 

IX. Scandinavian influence in the Orkneys, Shetlands, 

the Western Islands and Man . . . .112 

X. Scandinavian influence in Ireland . . . .116 

XI. Scandinavian influence in England .... 123 

XII. Scandinavian influence in the Empire and Iceland . 138 
Bibliography . . . . . . . .146 

Index 148 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Gokstad ship Frontispiece 

PLATE 

I. Viking ship from the Bayeux tapestry facing page 100 

II. Ornaments of the Viking period . „ „ 104 

III. The Jellinge stone . . . . „ „ 111 

The frontispiece is reproduced by kind permission of the 
photographer, Mr 0. Veering, of Christiania; plates II and III 
are taken from Sophus Miiller's Nordische Altertumskunde. 



INTRODUCTION 



The term ' Viking ' is derived from the Old Norse 
vik, a bay, and means 6 one who haunts a bay, creek 
or fjord 1 '. In the 9th and 10th centuries it came to 
be used more especially of those warriors who left 
their homes in Scandinavia and made raids on the 
chief European countries. This is the narrow, and 
technically the only correct use of the term 6 Viking/ 
but in such expressions as 6 Viking civilisation/ 6 the 
Viking age/ 'the Viking movement/ 'Viking in- 
fluence/ the word has come to have a wider significance 
and is used as a concise and convenient term for 
describing the whole of the civilisation, activity and 
influence of the Scandinavian peoples, at a particular 
period in their history, and to apply the term ' Viking ' 
in its narrower sense to these movements would 
be as misleading as to write an account of the age of 
Elizabeth and label it 6 The Buccaneers.' 

3 The word is older than the actual Viking age : it is found in 
Anglo-Saxon in the form wicing. Some writers have said that it 
means 'people from the district of the Vik 9 in South Norway, so- 
called from the long fjord-like opening which is found there, but the 
early Anglo-Saxon use of the term forbids this derivation. 

M. 1 



2 



THE VIKINGS 



It is in the broader sense, that the term is 
employed in the present manual. Plundering and 
harrying form but one aspect of Viking activity and 
it is mainly a matter of accident that this aspect is 
the one that looms largest in our minds. Our know- 
ledge of the Viking movement was, until the last 
half-century, drawn almost entirely from the works of 
medieval Latin chroniclers, writing in monasteries 
and other kindred schools of learning which had only 
too often felt the devastating hand of Viking raiders. 
They naturally regarded them as little better than 
pirates and they never tired of expatiating upon 
their cruelty and their violence. It is only during 
the last fifty years or so that we have been able to 
revise our ideas of Viking civilisation and to form a 
juster conception of the part which it played in the 
history of Europe. 

The change has come about chiefly in two ways. 
In the first place the literature of Scandinavia is no 
longer a sealed book to us. For our period there 
are three chief groups of native authorities : (1) the 
prose sagas and the Historia Danica of Saxo Gram- 
maticus, (2) the eddaic poems, (3) the skaldic poems. 
The prose sagas and Saxo belong to a date considerably 
later than the Viking age, but they include much 
valuable material referring to that period. The chief 
poems of the older Edda date from the Viking period 
itself and are invaluable for the information they 



INTRODUCTION 



3 



give us as to the religion and mythology of the 
Scandinavian peoples at this time, the heroic stories 
current amongst them, and their general outlook on 
life. The skaldic poems are however in some ways 
the most valuable historical authority for the period. 
The skalds or court-poets were attached to the courts 
of kings and jarls, shared their adventures, praised 
their victories, and made songs of lament on their 
death, and their work is largely contemporary with 
the events they describe. 

Secondly, and yet more important in its results 
perhaps, archaeological science has, within the last 
half-century, made rapid advance, and the work 
of archaeologists on the rich finds brought to light 
during the last hundred years has given us a vast body 
of concrete fact, with the aid of which we have been 
able to reconstruct the material civilisation of the 
Viking period far more satisfactorily than we could 
from the scattered and fragmentary notices found in 
the sagas and elsewhere. The resultant picture calls 
for description later, but it is well to remember 
from the outset that it is a very different one from 
that commonly associated with the term 'Viking/ 

With this word of explanation and note of warning 
we may proceed to our main subject. 



1—2 



4 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



CHAPTER I 

CAUSES OF THE VIKING MOVEMENT 

The period of Scandinavian history to which the 
term Viking is applied extends roughly from the middle 
of the 8th to the end of the 10th or the first half of 
the 11th century. Its commencement was marked by 
the raids of Scandinavian freebooters upon the coasts 
of England, Western Scotland and Ireland and upon 
Frankish territory. Its climax was reached when in 
the course of the 9th and 10th centuries Scandinavian 
rule was established in Ireland, Man and the Western 
Islands, the northern and midland districts of England, 
Normandy, and a great part of Russia. Its close was 
marked by the consolidation of the Scandinavian 
kingdoms in the late 10th and early 11th centuries 
under such mighty sovereigns as Olaf Tryggvason 
and Olaf the Holy in Norway, Olaf Skotkonung in 
Sweden, and greatest of all, king Knut in Denmark, 
who for a brief time united the whole of Scandinavia 
and a great part of the British Isles in one vast 
confederacy. 

The extent and importance of the movement is 
indicated from the first by the almost simultaneous 
appearance of trouble in England, on the coast of 
France, and on the Eider boundary between Denmark 
and the Frankish empire. 



i] CAUSES OF THE VIKING MOVEMENT 5 



In the reign of Beorhtric, king of Wessex (786-802), 
three ships of the Northmen coming from Horftaland 
(around Hardanger Fjord) landed near Dorchester, 
in June 793 Lindisfarne was sacked, in March 800 
Charlemagne found himself compelled to equip a 
fleet and establish a stronger coastguard to defend 
the Frankish coast against the attacks of the North- 
men, and from 777 onwards, when the Saxon patriot 
Widukind took refuge with the Danish king Sigefridus 
(O.N. SigroSr), there was almost constant friction 
along the land-boundary between Denmark and the 
Frankish empire. 

This outburst of hostile activity had been preceded 
by considerable intercourse of a varied character 
between Scandinavia and the countries of Western 
Europe. Early in the 6th century the Danes or, 
according to another authority, the Gotar from Gota- 
land in south Sweden, invaded Frisia under their 
king Chocilaicus. Reference is made to this raid in 
the story of Hygelac, king of the Geatas, in Beowulf. 
Professor Zimmer suggested that the attacks of un- 
known pirates on the island of Eigg in the Hebrides 
and on Tory Island off Donegal, described in certain 
Irish annals of the 7th century, were really the work 
of Scandinavian ladders. The evidence of Irish legend 
and saga goes to prove that in the same century 
Irish anchorites settled in the Shetlands but were 
later compelled by the arrival of Scandinavian settlers 



6 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



to move on to the lonely Faroes. Here they were 
not to be left in peace, for the Irish geographer 
Dicuil, writing in 825, tells us that the Faroes had 
then been deserted by the monks for some thirty 
years owing to the raids of Northmen pirates. 
Dr Jakobsen has shown that the forms of place- 
names in the Shetlands point very definitely to a 
settlement from Scandinavia in pre- Viking days — 
before 700 — while the sculptured stones of Gothland 
show already at the end of the 7th century clear 
evidence of Celtic art influence. Possibly also mer- 
chants of Scandinavian origin were already settled in 
the Frankish empire and it is certain that there was 
considerable trade between Scandinavia and the West. 

Most of the intercourse thus demonstrated was 
slow in development, peaceful and civilising in cha- 
racter. How came it that in the later years of the 
8th century this intercourse was suddenly strengthened 
and intensified, while at the same time it underwent 
a great change both in methods and character ? 

The traditional explanation is that given by Dudo 
and by William of Jumieges in their histories of the 
settlement of Normandy and by Saxo in his ac- 
count of Danish settlements in Baltic lands in the 
10th century, viz. that the population of Scandinavia 
had outgrown its means of support and that enforced 
emigration was the result. There may be a certain 
element of truth in the tradition but when it says 



i] CAUSES OF THE VIKING MOVEMENT 7 



that this excess of population was due to polygamy 
we have every reason to doubt it. Polygamy does 
not lead to an over-rapid growth of population as a 
whole, and it is fairly certain that it was practised 
only by the ruling classes in Scandinavia. It is quite 
possible, however, that the large number of sons in 
the ruling families made it necessary for the younger 
ones to go forth and gain for themselves fresh 
territories in new lands. 

A clearer light is perhaps thrown on the matter if 
we examine the political condition of the Scandinavian 
countries at this time. In Norway we find that the 
concentration of kingly authority in the hands of 
Harold Fairhair after the middle of the 9th century 
led many of the more independent spirits to leave 
Norway and adopt a Viking life in the West or to 
settle in new homes in Iceland. So strong was the 
spirit of independence that when Harold Fairhair 
received the submission of the Vikings of the West 
after the battle of Hafrsfjord, many of them rather 
than endure even a shadowy overlordship abandoned 
their Viking life and settled down to peaceful in- 
dependence in Iceland. It is quite possible that 
earlier attempts at consolidation on the part of 
previous petty Norwegian kings may have had similar 
results. 

Of the condition of Sweden we know practically 
nothing but we have sufficient information about the 



8 



THE VIKINGS 



[ch. 



course of events in Denmark at this time to see that 
it probably tended to hasten the development of 
the Viking movement. Throughout the first half 
of the 9th century there were repeated dynastic 
struggles accompanied probably by the exile, vol- 
untary or forced, of many members of the rival 
factions. 

External causes also were certainly not without 
influence. From the 6th century down to the middle of 
the 8th, the Frisians were the great naval and trading 
power of North- West Europe. They had probably 
taken some part in the conquest of England and, during 
the 7th and 8th centuries, the whole of the coast of 
the Netherlands from the Scheldt to the Weser was 
in their hands. Their trade was extensive, their 
chief city being Duurstede a few miles south-east of 
Utrecht. The northward expansion of the Franks 
brought them into collision with the Frisians in the 
7th century. The struggle was long and fierce but in 
the end the Frisians were defeated by Charles Martel 
in 734 and finally subjugated by Charlemagne in 785. 
The crushing of Frisian naval power and the crippling 
of their trade probably played no unimportant part 
in facilitating the Scandinavian advance, and it is 
curious to note that while there is considerable 
archaeological evidence for peaceful intercourse be- 
tween the west coast of Norway and Frisian lands in 
the 8th century, that evidence seems to come to an 



i] CAUSES OF THE VIKING MOVEMENT 9 



end about the year 800, just when Frisian power 
finally declined. There can be no doubt also that 
the conquest of the Saxons by Charlemagne at the 
close of the 8th century, bringing Franks and Danes 
face to face along the Eider boundary, made the latter 
uneasy. 

There has been much arguing to and fro of the 
question as to the respective shares taken by Danes 
and Norwegians in the Viking movement. That of 
the Swedes can fortunately be determined with a 
good deal more certainty. The Swedes were for the 
most part interested only in Eastern Europe and 
there by way of trade rather than of battle : we learn 
from runic inscriptions and other sources that some 
Swedes did visit England and the West, but these 
visits were due to individual rather than national 
activity. The question as between Dane and Nor- 
wegian has been to some extent made more difficult 
of settlement through the national prejudices of 
Scandinavian scholars ; e.g. Danes for the most part 
decide in favour of the Danish origin of Hollo of 
Normandy, while Norwegians decide in favour of his 
Norwegian birth. Such differences of opinion are 
unfortunately only too often possible owing to the 
scantiness of the material upon which we have to 
base our conclusions. Medieval chroniclers were for 
the most part unable or unwilling to distinguish 
between Danes and Norwegians ; they were all alike 



10 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



' Nordmanni ' to them and the term 6 Dani ' is practic- 
ally interchangeable with it. The vagueness of their 
ethnographical knowledge is manifest when we find 
the Norman Dudo at the beginning of the 11th century 
tracing back the Dani (or Daci) to an original home 
in Dacia. The Irish annalists did, however, draw a 
very definite distinction between Norwegians and 
Danes — Finn-gaill and Dubh-gaill as they called them, 
i.e. White and Black Foreigners respectively 1 . They 
seem never to confuse them, but exactly on what 
grounds they gave them their distinguishing epithets 
it is now impossible to determine. They do not 
correspond to any known ethnographical differences, 
and the only other reasonable suggestion which has 
been offered is that the terms are used to describe 
some difference of armour or equipment as yet un- 
known to us. The Irish annals also distinguish 
between Daunites or Danes and Lochlanns or men 
from Lochlann, i.e. Norway; but again the origin of the 
term Lochlann as applied to Norway is obscure. 
The writers of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle seem to 
use the term NorSmmn very definitely of Norwegians, 
just as Alfred does in his translation of Orosius, but 
the term Dene came to be used more vaguely and 
uncertainly. It is only very rarely that the chroniclers 

1 The name Finn-gaill survives in Fingall, the name of a district 
to the north of Dublin, while Dubh-gaill is the second element in the 
proper names MacDougall and MacDowell. 



i] CAUSES OF THE VIKING MOVEMENT 11 



vouchsafe us precise information as to the home of 
any particular group of Viking raiders. We have 
already mentioned the presence of Norwegians from 
HorSaland in England at the very opening of the 
movement 1 : once we hear of 6 Westfaldingi,' i.e. men 
from Vestfold in South Norway, in an account of 
attacks on Aquitaine, and in one passage the Vikings 
are called ' Scaldingi/ but it is disputed whether this 
means Vikings who had been quartering themselves 
in the valley of the Scheldt, or is a term applied to 
the Danes from the name of their royal family, viz. 
the Skjoldungar 2 . Speaking roughly we may however 
assert that Ireland, Scotland and the Western Islands 
were almost entirely in the hands of Norwegian 
settlers (Danish attacks on Ireland failed for the 
most part). Northumbria was Norwegian, but East 
Anglia and the Five Boroughs were Danish. The 
attacks on France and the Netherlands were due 
both to Norwegians and Danes, probably with a 
preponderance of the latter, while Danes and Swedes 
alone settled in Baltic lands. 

1 The name Hiruath given by Celtic writers to Norway probably 
points also to a tradition that many of the Viking invaders of Ireland 
were Horftar from Norway. 

2 A third explanation has recently been suggested by Dr Bjorkman, 
viz. that it is a Low German word meaning * shipmen ' which came 
to be used specially of the Vikings. 



12 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



CHAPTER II 

THE VIKING MOVEMENT DOWN TO THE MIDDLE 
OF THE 9TH CENTURY 

England was possibly the scene of the earliest 
Viking raids, but after the Dorchester raid, the sack 
of Lindisfarne in 793 (v. supra, p. 5), and the devasta- 
tion of the monastery of St Paul at Jarrow in 794 we 
hear nothing more of Vikings in England until 835. 
The fate of Ireland was different. Attacks began 
almost at the same time as in England and continued 
without intermission. Vikings sailed round the west 
coast of Scotland. Skye and then Lambay Island off 
Dublin were invaded in 795, Glamorganshire was 
ravaged in the same year and the Isle of Man was 
attacked in 798. Iona was plundered in 802 and again 
in 806. In 807 invaders appeared off the coast of 
Sligo and made their way inland as far as Roscommon, 
and in 811 Munster was plundered. In 821 the 
Howth peninsula near Dublin and two small islands 
in Wexford Haven were ravaged. The Vikings had 
completely encircled Ireland with their fleets and 
by the year 834 they had made their way well into 
the interior of the island so that none were safe from 
their attacks. They no longer contented them- 
selves with isolated raids : large fleets began to visit 
Ireland and to anchor in the numerous loughs and 



II] 



TURGES IN IRELAND 



13 



harbours with which the coast abounds. Thence 
they made lengthy raids on the surrounding country 
and often strengthened their base by building forts 
on the shores of the loughs or harbours in which 
they had established themselves. It was in this way 
that Dublin, Waterford and Limerick first rose to 
importance. 

Of the leaders of the Vikings at this time there is 
only one whose figure stands out at all clearly, and 
that is Turges (O.N. Dorgestr) who first appeared in 
832 at the sack of Armagh. He had come to Ireland 
with a great and royal fleet and ' assumed the 
sovereignty over the foreigners in Erin.' He had 
fleets on Lough Neagh, at Louth, and on Lough Ree, 
and raided the country as far south as the Meath 
district. Turges was not the only invader at this 
time: indeed so numerous were the invading hosts 
that the chronicles tell us ' after this there came 
great sea-cast floods of foreigners into Erin, so that 
there was not a point thereof without a fleet.' The 
power of Turges culminated in 841, when he drove 
the abbot of Armagh into exile, usurped the abbacy, 
and exercised the sovereignty of North Ireland. At 
the same time his wife Ota (O.N. AuSr) profaned 
the monastery of Clonmacnoise and gave audience, 
probably as a volva or prophetess, upon the high 
altar. Three years later Turges was captured by the 
Irish and drowned in Lough Owel (co. West Meath). 



14 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



The early attacks on England and the first invasion 
of Ireland were alike due to Norsemen rather than 
Danes. This is evident from their general course, 
from the explicit statement of the Anglo-Saxon 
chronicle, and from the fact that the first arrival of 
Danes in Ireland is definitely recorded in the year 
849. The attack on Dorchester (c. 786-802), lying as 
it does near the centre of the south coast of England, 
is somewhat strange if it is assigned to the traditional 
date, viz. 787, but there is no authority for this, and 
if it is placed at any date nearer to 802 (before which 
it must have taken place), it is probable that the 
attack may be explained as an extension of Viking 
raids down St George's Channel and round the S.W. 
corner of England. 

In 835 the attacks on England were renewed after 
an interval of 40 years, but as they now stand in 
close connexion with contemporary invasions of 
Frankish territory there is every reason to believe 
that they were of Danish rather than of Norse origin. 
The attacks began in the south and west but they 
soon spread to East Anglia and Lindsey. In 842 the 
same army ravaged London, Etaples and Rochester. 
In 851 Aethelstan of Kent defeated the Danes at sea 
in one of the rare battles fought with them on 
their own element, and in the same year they remained 
for the winter in Thanet, probably owing to the loss 
of their ships. The size and importance of these 



ii] WINTERING IN SHEPPEY (855) 15 



attacks may be gauged from the fact that in this 
year a fleet of some 350 Danish ships sailed up 
the Thames. It was probably that same fleet, with 
slightly diminished numbers, which in 852 ravaged 
Frisia and then sailed round the British Isles, came 
to Ireland, and captured Dublin. In 855 the Danes 
wintered for the first time in Sheppey and we reach 
the same point in the development of their attacks 
on England to which they had already attained in 
Ireland. We pass away from the period of raiding. 
The Danes now came prepared to stay for several 
years at a time and to carry on their attacks with 
unceasing persistency. 

The course of events in the Frankish empire ran 
on much the same lines as in England and Ireland 
during these years except that here trouble arose on 
the land boundary between Denmark and the Franks 
as well as on the sea-coast. 

Alarmed by the conquest of the Saxons the 
Danish king GuSroSr collected a fleet at Slesvik and 
in 808 he crossed the Eider and attacked the 
Abodriti (in Mecklenburg-Schwerin), a Slavonic tribe 
in alliance with the Franks. He also sent a fleet of 
some 200 vessels to ravage the coast of Frisia, laid 
claim to that district and to Saxony, north of the 
Elbe, and threatened to attack Charlemagne in his 
own capital. The emperor was preparing to resist 
him when news arrived (810) of the death of GuftroSr 



16 



THE VIKINGS 



at the hands of one of his followers and the con- 
sequent dispersal of the Danish fleet. 

Soon after disputes over the succession arose 
between the family of GuftrocSr and that of an earlier 
king Harold. Ultimately the contest resolved itself 
into one between the sons of GuSroftr, especially one 
Horic (O.N. H&rekr) and a certain Harold. It 
lasted for several years, the sons of GuftroSr for the 
most part maintaining their hold on Denmark. At 
one time during the struggle Harold and his brother 
RagnfroSr went to Vestfold in Norway, 1 the extreme 
district of their realm, whose chiefs and peoples were 
refusing to be made subject to them, and gained 
their submission/ showing clearly that at this time 
Denmark and Southern Norway were under one rule 
and rendering probable the identification of GuSroSr 
with GuSroSr the Yngling who about this time was 
slain by a retainer in Stifla Sound on the south coast 
of Norway. This king ruled over Vestfold, half 
Vingulmork and perhaps AgSir. Both parties were 
anxious to secure the support of the emperor Lewis 
and in the end Harold gained his help by accepting 
baptism at Mainz in 826. He promised to promote 
the cause of Christianity in Denmark, while Lewis in 
return granted him the district of liiustringen in 
Frisia as a place of retreat in case of necessity. The 
Danes thereby gained their first foothold within the 
empire. 



ii] ATTACKS ON THE EMPIRE 17 



Sufficient has been said of the relation between 
Denmark and the empire on its land boundary : we 
must now say something of the attacks made by sea. 

The first were made in 799 on the coast of 
Aquitaine and they were probably due to raiders 
from Ireland who followed a well-known trade route 
from South Ireland to the ports of Southern France. 
In 800 Charlemagne inspected the coast from the 
Somme to the Seine and gave orders for the equipment 
of a fleet and the strengthening of the coastguard 
against Northmen pirates. When GuSroftr's fleet 
plundered the islands off the Frisian coast in 810, 
Charlemagne gave orders for his fleet to be strength- 
ened once more, but the results were meagre in the 
extreme. The passage of the Channel was no longer 
safe, and year after year, from some time before 819, 
Vikings harried the island of Noirmoutier at the 
mouth of the Loire, commanding the port of Nantes 
and the extensive salt-trade of the district. The 
Island of Rhe opposite La Rochelle, was raided in 
similar fashion. 

The Frankish empire was free from attack 
between the years 814 and 833. During the same 
time the English coast was also unvisited, and it is 
probable that the struggles for the succession in 
Denmark had for the time being reduced that king- 
dom to inactivity. About the year 830 the Danish 
king H&rekr seems to have established himself 

M. 2 



V 

18 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



firmly on the throne, while on the other hand the 
emperor Lewis was troubled by the ambition of his 
sons Lewis, Pippin and Lothair. It is probably no 
chance coincidence that these events synchronised 
with the renewal of Viking attacks on Frisia. 
Throughout their history the Vikings showed them- 
selves well informed of the changing political con- 
ditions of the countries which they visited and ready 
to make the utmost use of the opportunities which 
these might give for successful invasion. 

Frisia was the main point of attack during the 
next few years. Four times was the rich trading 
town of Duurstede ravaged ; fleets sailed up the 
Veldt, the Maas, and the Scheldt ; Antwerp was 
burned and the Island of Walcheren plundered, so 
that by the year 840 the greater part of Frisia south 
of the Vlie, was in Danish hands and so it remained 
till the end of the century. The Danish king Harekr 
repeatedly denied all complicity in these raids and 
even promised to punish the raiders, but it is im- 
possible to tell how far his denials were genuine. 
Equally difficult is it to say how far Harold in his 
Frisian home was responsible for these attacks. 
The annalists charge him with complicity, but Lewis 
seems to have thought it best to bind him by fresh 
gifts and (probably about 839) granted the district 
around Duurstede itself to him and his brother Roric 
(O.N. Hroerekr) on condition that they helped to 



ii] ATTACKS ON THE EMPIRE 19 



ward off Viking attacks. All the efforts of the 
emperor to equip a fleet or to defend the coast were 
to no purpose, and there was even a suspicion that 
the Frisian populace were in sympathy with the 
Vikings. So great was the terror of attack that 
when in 839 a Byzantine mission, including some 
Rhos or Swedes from Russia, visited the emperor at 
Ingelheim, the Swedes were for a time detained 
under suspicion, as spies. 

On the death of Lewis the Pious in 840 things 
went from bad to worse. The division of the empire 
in 843 gave the coast from the Eider to the Weser to 
Lewis, from the Weser to the Scheldt to Lothair, and 
the rest to Charles, removing all possibility of a united 
and organised defence, and soon these princes entered 
on the fatal policy of calling in the Vikings to assist 
them in their quarrels. Thus Lothair in 841 en- 
deavoured to bind Harold to his cause by a grant of 
the Island of Walcheren and Harold is found in the 
following year with Lothair s army on the Moselle. 

The Viking expeditions to England and France 
stand now in close connexion. In 841 the valley of 
the Seine was ravaged as far as Rouen, in 842 
Etaples in Picardy was destroyed by a fleet from 
England, while in 843 Nantes fell a prey to their 
attacks. From their permanent quarters at Noirmou- 
tier the Vikings sailed up the Garonne and penetrated 
inland as far as Toulouse. In 844 we hear from 

2—2 



Sf 20 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



Arab historians of their vessels swarming on the 
coasts of Spain like 'dark red sea-birds/ but while 
they effected landings at Lisbon and Cadiz and at 
Arzilla in Morocco, and captured Seville, with the 
exception of its citadel, the Mussulman resistance 
was too stout for them to effect much. 

As a result of this expedition the Emir of Cordova, 
Abd-ar-Rahman II sent an embassy to the king of 
the Madjus (i.e. the magi or the heathen, one of 
the commonest Arab names for the Vikings). The 
ambassador found the king living in an island three 
days' journey from the mainland, but we are told that 
the heathen occupied many other neighbouring isles 
and the mainland also. He was courteously received 
by the king and became an especial favourite with 
the queen Noud (? O.N. AuSr). His companions were 
alarmed at the intimacy and as a result the ambas- 
sador paid less frequent visits to court. The queen 
asked him why, and when he told her the reason she 
said that, owing to perfect freedom of divorce, there 
was no jealousy among the Madjus. The details of 
the story are too vague to admit of certainty, but it 
would seem as if the embassy had visited the court 
of the great Turges and his equally remarkable wife 
Au&r in Ireland, or perhaps that of Olaf the White 
and his wife AuSr (v. infra, p. 66). 

In 845 H&rekr of Denmark sailed up the Elbe 
[and destroyed Hamburg, while in the same year the 



ii] PLAGUE AMONG THE VIKINGS 21 



dreaded Ragnarr Loftbr6k, most famous of all Vikings, 
sailed up the Seine as far as Paris. While on its 
retreat from Paris, after the usual devastation, 
a strange and deadly disease, possibly some form of 
dysentery due to scantiness of food resulting from 
a hard winter, broke out in the Danish army. 
Various legends arose in connexion with this event, 
and it finds a curious echo in the story told by Saxo 
Grammaticus of an expedition made by Ragnarr 
among the Biarmians (in Northern Russia) when 
that people by their prayers called down a plague of 
dysentery upon the Danes in which large numbers 
perished. In the end the historical plague was 
stayed when H&rekr commanded the Vikings on their 
return to Denmark to refrain from flesh and meat 
for fourteen days. Whether as a result of the plague 
or from some other cause H4rekr now showed him- 
self ready to come to terms with Lewis, and for the 
next eighty years there was complete peace along the 
Eider boundary. The whole of the coast was still 
open to attack however ; Frisia was hardly ever free 
from invaders ; Brittany was obliged to buy off 
Danish attacks in 847, while Noirmoutier continued 
to form a basis of attack against Southern France 
in the Gironde district. The Viking invasions in 
France had attained much the same stage as that to 
which we have already traced them in England and 
Ireland. 



22 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



CHAPTER III 

THE VIKINGS IN ENGLAND TO THE DEATH 
OF HARTHACNUT 

The great development of Viking activity which 
took place after 855 was certainly not unconnected 
with the course of events in Denmark itself. Harekr 
was attacked by his two nephews in 850 and com- 
pelled to share the kingdom with them. In 854 large 
bands of Vikings returned to their fatherland after 
twenty years' ravaging in Frankish territory. Trouble 
now arose between H&rekr and his nephew Godurm 
(O.N. Guftormr), one of the returned leaders. Civil 
war broke out and ultimately, after a great fight, the 
kingship fell to a younger H4rekr, a relative of the 
late king. A severe dynastic struggle of this kind 
must have been accompanied by much unsettlement 
and perhaps by an actual proscription. It would 
certainly seem that there was some definite con- 
nexion between these events and the coincident 
appearance of the sons of Ragnarr LoSbr6k as 
leaders of a more extended Viking movement both 
in England and in France. Three of his sons— 
Halfdanr, Ubbi and Ivarr — took part in the first 
wintering in Sheppey in 855, while in the same year 
another son Bjorn Ironside appeared on the Seine. 



Ill] 



RAGNARR LODBROK 



23 



The figure of Ragnarr LoSbrok himself belongs to 
an earlier generation, and great as was his after-fame 
we unfortunately know very little of his actual career. 
He would seem to have been of Norwegian birth, 
closely connected with the south of Norway and the 
house of GuSroSr, but like that prince having ex- 
tensive interests in Denmark. He probably visited 
Ireland in 831, for we read in Saxo of an expedition 
made by Ragnarr to Ireland when he slew king 
Melbricus and ravaged Dublin, an event which is 
pretty certainly to be identified with an attack made 
on the Conaille district (co. Louth) by foreigners in 
831 when the king Maelbrighde was taken prisoner. 
He led the disastrous Seine expedition in 845 (y. supra, 
p. 21). The next glimpse of him which we have 
is probably that found in certain Irish annals where 
he is represented as exiled from his Norwegian 
patrimony and living with some of his sons in the 
Orkneys while others were absent on expeditions to 
the British Isles, Spain and Africa, and a runic 
inscription has been found at Maeshowe in the 
Orkneys confirming the connexion of the sons of 
Loftbrok and possibly of LoSbrok himself with those 
islands. The expeditions would be those mentioned 
above and the yet more famous one made to Spain, 
Africa and Italy by Bjorn Ironside in the years 859-62 
{v. infra, pp. 46-7). Ragnarr Lo3br6k's later history 
is uncertain. According to the Irish annals quoted 



24 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



above, his sons while on their expedition dreamed 
that their father had died in a land not his own 
and on their return found it to be true. This agrees 
with Scandinavian tradition according to which 
Ragnafr met his death at the hands of Aelle, king of 
/ \ Northumbria, by whom he was thrown into a snake- 
pit, while the capture of York by Ivarr the Boneless 
1 in 866-7 (v. infra) is represented as part of a great 
expedition of vengeance undertaken by the sons of 
Ragnarr. This tradition (apart from certain details) 
is probably historical, but we have no definite 
confirmatory evidence. 

With this note on the history of Denmark at this 
time and on the career of the most shadowy, if at the 
same time the most famous of the Viking leaders, 
we may turn once more to the history of events in 
England. 

For ten years after the wintering in Sheppey, 
England was left in a state of comparative peace. 
The change came in 866 when a large Danish force 
which had been bribed to leave the Seine by Charles 
the Bald sailed to England and took up its quarters 
in East Anglia. In 867 they crossed the Humber 
and captured York, their task being made easier by 
the quarrels of Aelle and Osberht as to the kingship 
of Northumbria. Next year the rivals patched up 
their differences, but failed to recapture York from 
the Danes under Ivarr and Ubbi. Setting up a 



Ill] 



ST EDMUND 



25 



puppet king Ecgberht in Northumbria north of the 
Tyne, the Danes next received the submission of 
Mercia and returned to York in 869. In 870 they 
marched through Mercia into East Anglia, as far as 
Thetford, engaged the forces of Edmund, king of 
East Anglia, defeated and slew him, whether in 
actual battle or in later martyrdom, as popular 
tradition would have it, is uncertain. The death of 
St Edmund, king and martyr, soon became an event 
of European fame and no Viking leader was more 
widely execrated than the cruel Ivarr, who was 
deemed responsible. 

The turn of Wessex came next. The fortunes of 
battle fluctuated but the accounts usually terminate 
with the ominous words 'the Danes held possession 
of the battle field.' In 871, Alfred commenced his 
heroic struggle with the Danes and in the first 
year of his reign some nine pitched battles were 
fought, beside numerous small engagements. So 
keen was the West Saxon resistance that a truce was 
made in 871 and the Danes turned their attention to 
Mercia once more. London was forced to ransom 
itself at a heavy price and a coin of Halfdanr, 
probably minted in London at the time, has been 
found. After a hurried visit to Northumbria the 
here settled down for the winter of 872-3 at Torksey 
in the Lindsey district, whence they moved in 873 to 
Repton in Derbyshire. They overthrew Burhred of 



26 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



Mercia and set up a foolish thegn of his as puppet 
ruler of that realm. In the winter of 874-5 the here 
divided forces : one part went under Halfdanr to 
the Tyne valley, the other under Guthrum (O.N. 
Gucformr) to Cambridge. 

In 876 Halfdanr divided up the lands of North- 
umbria among his followers who soon ploughed and 
cultivated them. At the same time they did not forget 
their old occupations. Raids were made against the 
Picts and the Strathclyde Welsh, while Halfdanr 
soon became involved in the great struggle going on 
in Ireland at that time between Norsemen and Danes. 
This ultimately led to his death in 877 {v. infra, 
p. 58). 

In the meantime the struggle continued in Wessex. 
In 875 Alfred captured seven Danish ships. In 876 
the southern division of the here slipped past the 
West Saxon fyrd and reached Wareham in Dorset- 
shire, but came to terms with Alfred. Though the 
peace was sworn with all solemnity on their 
sacred altar-ring, the mounted portion of the here 
slipped off once more and established themselves 
in Exeter. Their land forces were supported by 
a parallel movement of the fleet. At Exeter Alfred 
made peace with them and the here returned to 
Mercia. There half the land was divided up among 
the Danes while the southern half was left in the 
hands of Ceolwulf. 



in] ALFRED AND GUTHRUM 27 



Alfred reached the nadir of his fortunes when 
the here returned to Wessex in the winter of 877-8, 
drove many of the inhabitants into exile across the 
sea, and received the submission of the rest with the 
exception of King Alfred and a few followers who 
took refuge in the Island of Athelney amid the 
Somersetshire marshes. Alfred soon gathered round 
him a force with which he was able to issue from his 
stronghold and ultimately to inflict a great defeat on 
the Danes at Edington near Westbury. They now 
made terms with Alfred by the peace of Wedmore, 
and agreed to leave Alfred's kingdom while their king 
Guthrum received Christian baptism. They withdrew 
first to Cirencester and then to East Anglia. Here 
they settled, portioning out the land as they had done 
in Northumbria and Northern Mercia. A peace was 
drawn up between Alfred and Guthrum of East Anglia 
defining the boundary between their realms. It was 
to run along the Thames estuary to the mouth of the 
Lea (a few miles east of London), then up the Lea to 
its source near Leighton Buzzard, then due north to 
Bedford, then eastwards up the Ouse to Watling St. 
somewhere near Fenny or Stony Stratford. From 
this point the boundary is left undefined, probably 
because the kingdoms of Alfred and Guthrum ceased 
to be conterminous here. 

England now had peace for some twelve years. 
Alfred made good use of the interval in reorganising 



28 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



his army and strengthening the kingdom generally, so 
that when attacks were renewed in 892 he was much 
better prepared to meet them. In the autumn of 
that year two fleets coming from France arrived in 
England : one landed on the Limen (between Hythe 
and Romney Marsh), the other under the leadership 
of Hsesten (O.N. Hasteinn) at Milton in North Kent. 
Alfred's difficulties were increased by the fact that 
during the next four years the Danish settlers in 
Northumbria and East Anglia played a more or less 
actively hostile part, both by land and sea. The Danes 
showed all their old mobility and in a series of raids 
crossed England more than once — first to Buttington 
on the Severn (co. Montgomery), then to Chester, 
and on a third occasion to Bridgenorth in Shropshire. 
They met with a uniformly stout and well organised 
resistance under the leadership of Alfred, his son 
Edward the Elder, and his brother-in-law Aethelred 
of Mercia, and in the end they had to retire with no 
fresh acquisition of territory. For the most part 
they distributed themselves among the East Anglian 
and Northumbrian Danes, but those who had no 
cattle wherewith to stock their land took ship and 
sailed back to the Seine. There were no further 
attacks from abroad during Alfred's reign, but 
piratical raids made by the East Anglian and North- 
umbrian Danes caused him a good deal of trouble, 
and in order to meet them he definitely addressed 



in] EDWARD THE ELDER 29 



himself to the long delayed task of equipping a fleet. 
The vessels were carefully designed according to 
Alfred's own ideas : they were larger, swifter and 
steadier than the Danish vessels and they soon 
showed their worth when more than 20 vessels with 
their crews were lost by the Danes in one year. It 
is interesting to note that these vessels were manned 
in part by Frisian sailors, probably because of the 
low ebb to which English seamanship had sunk. 

When once Edward the Elder's claim to the throne 
was firmly established in the battle fought at 'the 
Holm/ somewhere in South Cambridgeshire, he com- 
menced, with the active co-operation of his brother-in- 
law Aethelred, ealdorman of Mercia, the great work 
of strengthening the hold of the English on Southern 
Mercia preparatory to an attempt to reconquer the 
Danelagh. Chester was rebuilt in 907. In 910 a 
fort was built at ' Bremesbyrig/ possibly Bromes- 
berrow in Gloucestershire. Aethelred died in the 
next year, but his wife Aethelflsed, the 6 Lady of the 
Mercians/ continued his work, and forts were built 
at 'Scergeat/ perhaps Shrewsbury, at Bridgenorth 
on the Severn, at Tarn worth, and at Stafford in 912. 
In 914 Warwick was fortified, while in 915 forts were 
built at Chirbury in Shropshire and Runcorn in 
Cheshire. 

On the death of Aethelred, Edward took London 
and Oxford and the parts of Mercia adhering to them 



30 



THE VIKINGS 



[ch. 



into his own hands. Two forts were built on the 
north and south sides of the Lea at Hertford in 
911-12, and another at Withara on the Blackwater in 
Essex. Edward's work soon bore fruit, for we read 
that in the same year a large number of those who 
had been under Danish rule now made submission to 
the king. The Danes in the Five Boroughs became 
restless under the continued advance of the English, 
and twice in the year 913 they made raids from 
Leicester and Northampton as far as Hook Norton 
in Oxfordshire and Leighton Buzzard, while in the 
next year Edward, for the first time in his reign, was 
troubled by raiders from abroad. Coming from 
Brittany they sailed up the Severn, ravaged South 
Wales and the Archenfield district of Hereford- 
shire, but could do nothing against the garrison of 
Gloucester, Hereford and other neighbouring towns, 
which seem already to have been fortified. They 
were forced to leave the district and so careful 
a watch did Edward keep over the coast of Somerset, 
Devon and Cornwall that they could make no effective 
landing, though they tried twice, at Porlock and at 
Watchet. Ultimately they took up their quarters 
in the islands of Flatholme and Steepholme in the 
Bristol Channel, but lack of food soon drove them 
away to Ireland in a starving condition. In the same 
year Edward built two forts at Buckingham, one on 
each side of the Ouse, and his policy again found 



in] REGONQUEST OF THE DANELAGH 31 



speedy justification when Earl Thurcytel (O.N. 
Dorkell) and all the chief men who ' obeyed 1 ' 
Bedford, together with many of those who 'obeyed' 
Northampton submitted to him. 

Everything was now ready for the great advance 
against the Danes. Derby fell in 917, while in the 
next year Leicester yielded without a struggle. Their 
fall was accompanied by the submission of the men 
of Derbyshire and Leicestershire. At the same time 
the inhabitants of York declared themselves ready 
to enter the service of Mercia. Edward fortified 
Bedford in 915, Maldon and Towcester in South 
Northamptonshire in 916. Again the Danes from 
Northampton and Leicester tried to break through 
the steadily narrowing ring of forts and they managed 
to get as far south as Aylesbury, while others from 
Huntingdon and East Anglia built a fort at Tempsford 
in Bedfordshire near the junction of the Ivel and 
the Ouse. They besieged a fort at ' Wigingamere ' 
(unidentified) but were forced to withdraw. Edward 
gathered an army from the nearest garrison towns, 
besieged, captured, and destroyed Tempsford (915). 
In the autumn he captured Colchester and a Danish 

1 This phrase is used repeatedly in the Chronicle in connexion 
with such towns as Bedford, Cambridge, Derby, Leicester and 
Northampton, and there can be no question that these groups 
represent the shires which now take their names from these towns. 
For purposes of convenience we shall henceforward speak of such 
groups as 'shires.' 



32 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



attempt on Maldon failed. Edward now strengthened 
Towcester and received the submission of Earl 
Thurfrith (O.N. DorrotSr) and all the Danes in 
Northamptonshire as far north as the Welland. 
Huntingdon was occupied about the same time and 
the ring of forts around East Anglia brought about 
the submission of the whole of that district, 
Cambridgeshire making a separate compact on its 
own account. In 918 Edward built a fort just south 
of Stamford and soon received the submission of the 
Danes of South Lincolnshire, and in the same year 
occupied Nottingham, building a fort and garrisoning 
it with a mixed English and Danish force. He was 
now ruler of the whole of Mercia owing to the death 
of his sister Aethelfted, and in 919 he fortified 
Thelwall in Cheshire, on the Mersey, and rebuilt 
the old Roman fort at Manchester. In 920 he built 
a second fort at Nottingham and one at Bakewell in 
Derbyshire. The reconquest of the Danelagh was 
complete and Edward now received the submission 
of the Scots, the Strathclyde Welsh, of Regnold (O.N. 
Rognvaldr) of Northumbria, and of English, Danes 
and Norsemen alike. The Danish settlers accepted 
the sovereignty of the West Saxon king and hence- 
forward formed part of an expanded Wessex which 
had consolidated its power over all England south 
of a line drawn roughly from the Humber to the 
Dee. 



in] KINGS OF NORTHUMBRIA 33 



The submission of Rognvaldr, king of North- 
umbria and the mention of Norsemen need some 
comment. On the death of Halfdanr in 877 an 
interregnum of seven years ensued and then, in ac- 
cordance with instructions given by St Cuthbert in 
a vision to abbot Eadred of Carlisle, the North- 
umbrians chose a certain Guthred (O.N. GuSroSr) as 
their king. He was possibly a nephew of the late 
king, ruled till 894, and was also known as Cnut 
(O.N. Kniitr). We have coins bearing the in- 
scription ' Elfred rex ' on the obverse and ' Cnut rex ■ 
on the reverse, indicating apparently some over- 
lordship of king Alfred. Together with these we 
have some coins with ■ Cnut rex ' on the obverse and 
'Siefredus' or (Sievert) on the reverse, and others, 
minted at ' Ebroice civitas * (i.e. York), with the sole 
inscription 'Siefredus rex.' This latter king would 
seem to have been first a subordinate partner and 
then, on GuSroftr's death, sole ruler of Northumbria. 
Other coins belonging to about the same period and 
found in the great Cuerdale hoard near Preston, bear 
the inscription ' Sitric Comes,' and there is good 
reason to believe that Siefredus (O.N. SigroSr) and 
Sitric (O.N. Sigtryggr) are to be identified with 
Sichfrith and Sitriucc who just at this time are 
mentioned in the Irish annals as rival leaders of the 
Norsemen in Dublin. The identification is important 
as it shows us that Northumbria was now being 

M. 3 



34 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



brought into definite connexion with the Norse 
kingdom of Dublin and that the Norse element was 
asserting itself at the expense of the Danish in 
Northern England. 

The rule of SigroSr and Sigtryggr alike had come 
to an end by 911 and we know nothing more until 
the year 918 when a fresh invasion from Ireland took 
place under a certain Rognvaldr. He gained a 
victory at Corbridge-on-Tyne and captured York in 
919 or 920. He divided the lands of St Cuthbert 
among his followers but died in 921, the year of 
his submission to the overlordship of Edward. The 
Irish annals speak of him as king of White and Black 
foreigners alike, thus emphasising the composite 
settlement of Northumbria. 

Another leader from Ireland, one Sigtryggr, 
succeeded Rognvaldr as king of Northumbria. He 
was on friendly terms with Aethelstan and married 
his sister in 925. He died in 926 or 927 and then 
Aethelstan took Northumbria under his own control. 
Sigtryggr's brother GuSroSr submitted to Aethelstan 
but after four days at the court of king Aethelstan 
'he returned to piracy as a fish to the sea.' Both 
Sigtryggr and GuSroSr left sons bearing the name 
Anlaf (O.N. Olafr) and with them Aethelstan and his 
successors had much trouble. Anlaf Sihtricsson lived 
in exile in Scotland and gradually organised against 
Aethelstan a great confederacy of Scots, Strathclyde 



mj BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH 35 



Welsh and Vikings, both Danish and Norwegian, 
Anlaf Godfreyson brought help from Ireland and 
the great struggle began. The course of the cam- 
paign is uncertain but if the site of its main battle, 
' Brunanburh/ is to be identified with Birrenswark 
Hill in S.E. Dumfriesshire, it would seem that 
Aethelstan carried the war into the enemy's country. 
The result of the battle was a complete victory for 
the forces of Aethelstan and his brother Edmund. 
Constantine's son, five kings and seven jarls were 
among the slain. We have in the Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle a poem 1 celebrating the victory, and it 
describes in vivid language the hurried return home 
of Constantine, lamenting the death of his son, and 
the headlong flight of Anlaf Godfreyson to Dublin. 
England had been freed from its greatest danger 
since the days of king Alfred and his struggle with 
Guthrum. 

Aethelstan had no more trouble with the Norse- 
men and we have evidence from other sources that 
at some time during his reign, probably at an earlier 
date, he exchanged embassies with Harold Fairhair, 
king of Norway. The latter sent him a present of 
a ship with golden prow and purple sails and the 
usual bulwark of shields along the gunwale, while 
Harold's favourite son H&kon was brought up at 



1 See Tennyson's translation. 



3—2 



36 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



Aethelstan's court. There he was baptised and 
educated and is known in Norse history as H&kon 
ASalsteinsf6stri. 

After the death of Aethelstan, Anlaf Sihtricsson, 
nicknamed Cuaran (i.e. with the sock or brogue of 
leather, so called from his Irish dress) came to 
England and captured York. From there he made 
an attempt to conquer the Danish district of the 
Five Boroughs. He seems to have got a good part 
of Mercia into his hands but in the end Edmund 
freed the Danes from Norse oppression and took 
once more into his hands all Mercia south of a line 
from Dore (near Sheffield) to Whitwell (Derbyshire) 
and thence to the Humber. Edmund and Anlaf came 
to terms, but Anlaf was driven out by the Northum- 
brians in 943, and in the next year that province fell 
into the hands of Edmund. In 947 Eric Blood-axe, 
son of Harold Fairhair, was accepted as king by the 
Northumbrians. In Scandinavian tradition we learn 
how he was expelled from Norway in 934 by the 
supporters of H&kon, went on Viking raids in the 
west, was appointed ruler of Northumbria by Aethel- 
stan on condition of his defending it against attack, 
but was not on good terms with Edmund, who 
favoured one 6laf. Probably Eric retired after 
Aethelstan's death and only returned to England in 
947. In 948 Edmund forced the Northumbrians to 
abandon his cause and about the same time Anlaf 



in] LATER DANISH INVASIONS 37 



returned from Ireland and ruled till about 950 when 
he was replaced by Eric, whose short rule came to 
an end in 954. In that year he was expelled by 
the Northumbrians and killed at Stainmoor in West- 
morland. The^attempt to establish a Norse kingdom 
of Northumbria had failed and henceforward that 
district was directly under the rule of the English 
king. English authority was supreme once more even 
in those districts which were largely peopled with 
Scandinavian settlers. 

England had no further trouble with Norse or 
Danish invaders until the days of Ethelred the 
Unready, but no sooner did that weak and ill-advised 
king come to the throne than, with that ready and 
intimate knowledge of local conditions which they 
always displayed, we find Danes making an attack 
on Southampton and Norsemen one on Chester. The 
renewed attacks were not however due solely to 
the weakness of England, they were also the result 
of changed conditions in Scandinavia itself. In 
Denmark the reign of Harold Bluetooth was drawing 
to a close, and the younger generation, conscious of 
a strong and well-organised nation behind them, were 
ambitious of new and larger conquests, while at the 
same time many of them were in revolt against the 
definitely Christian policy of Harold in his old age. 
They turned with hope towards his young son Svein, 
and found in him a ready and willing leader. In 



38 THE VIKINGS [oh. 

Norway, Earl H&kon had broken away from the 
suzerainty of Harold Bluetooth, but the Norwegians 
could not forget that he owed his throne to a foreign 
power, and his personal harshness and licentiousness 
as well as his zealous cult of the old heathen rites 
were a cause of much discontent. The hopes of the 
younger generation were fixed on Olaf Tryggvason, 
a man filled with the spirit of the old Vikings. 
Captured by pirates from Esthonia when still a child, 
he was discovered, ransomed, and taken to Novgorod, 
where he entered the service of the Grand Duke 
Vladimir. Furnished by him with a ship he went 
'viking' in the Baltic and then ten years later we 
find him prominent among the Norsemen who 
attacked England in the days of king Ethelred. In 
991 a Norse fleet under Olaf visited Ipswich and 
Maldon. Here they met with a stout resistance 
headed by the brave Byrhtnoth, earl of Essex, and 
in the fragmentary lay of the fight at Maldon 1 , 
which has been preserved to us, we see that there 
was still much of the spirit of the heroic age left 
in the English nation even in the days of Ethelred II. 
It was to buy off this attack that a payment of 
Danegeld to the extent of some ten thousand pounds 
was made. From Maldon Olaf went to Wales and 
Anglesey and it was somewhere in the west that 

1 See Freeman's Old English History for Children for a translation 
of this poem. 



in] PAYMENTS OF DANEGELD 39 



he received knowledge of the Christian faith from 
an anchorite and was baptised. He did not however 
renounce his Viking-life, but joined forces with his 
great Danish contemporary Svein Forkbeard. Bam- 
borough was sacked in 993, and both were present 
at the siege of London in 994, when they sailed up 
the Thames with 490 ships. The attack was a failure 
and Olaf came to terms with Ethelred agreeing to 
desist from further attack in return for a payment of 
sixteen thousand pounds of Danegeld. Olaf was the 
more ready to make this promise as he was now 
addressing himself to the task of gaining the sove- 
reignty of Norway itself. Many of the Norsemen 
returned with Olaf but the attacks on the coast 
continued and the invaders, chiefly Danes now, 
ravaged the country in all directions. Treachery 
was rife in the English forces and again and again 
the ealdormen failed in the hour of need. Danegeld 
after Danegeld was paid in the vain hope of buying 
off further attacks, and the almost incredible sum of 
158,000 pounds of silver (i.e. some half million 
sterling) was paid as Danegeld during a period of 
little more than 20 years. Once or twice Ethelred 
showed signs of energy ; once in 1000 when a fleet 
was sent to Chester, which ravaged the Isle of Man 
while an army devastated Cumberland, and again in 
1004 when a great fleet was made ready but ulti- 
mately proved of no use. Ethelred's worst stroke 



40 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



of policy was the order given in 1002 for the massacre 
on St Brice's Day of all Danes settled in England. 
His orders were carried out only too faithfully and 
among the slain was Svein's sister Gunnhild, the wife 
of a Danish jarl in the king's service. Svein's ven- 
geance was relentless, and during the next ten years 
the land had no peace until in 1013 Ethelred was 
driven from the throne, and Svein himself became 
king of England. Svein died in 1014 and his son 
Cnut succeeded to his claim. Ethelred was invited 
by the witan to return, and ultimately Wessex fell 
to Cnut, while the district of the Seven Boroughs 
(the old five together with York and Chester) and 
Northumbria passed into the hands of Ethelred, or 
rather of his energetic son Edmund. This division 
of the country placing the district once settled by 
Danes and Norsemen under an English king while 
the heart of England itself was in the possession of 
a Scandinavian king shows how completely the settlers 
in those districts had come to identify themselves 
with English interests as a whole. Mercia was 
nominally in Ethelred's power, but its ealdorman, 
Eadric Streona, was the most treacherous of all the 
English earls. On Ethelred's death in 1016 the witan 
chose Edmund Ironside as king and a series of battles 
took place culminating in that at Ashingdon in Essex 
where the English were completely defeated through 
the treachery of Eadric. A division of the kingdom 



Ill] 



CNUT THE GREAT 



41 



was now made whereby Wessex fell to Edmund, 
Mercia and Northumbria to Cnut — thus easily was 
the allegiance of the various districts transferred from 
one sovereign to another. Edmund only lived a few 
months and Cnut then became king of all England. 
For twenty years the land enjoyed peace and pros- 
perity. In 1018 the greater part of the Danish army 
and fleet returned to Denmark, some forty ships and 
their crews sufficing Cnut for the defence of his 
kingdom. During the next four years he received 
the submission of the king of Scotland and made 
a memorable pilgrimage to Rome. The most im- 
portant event of his later years was however his 
struggle with Olaf the Stout, the great St Olaf of 
Norway. 

Norway was now entirely independent of Danish 
sovereignty and when Cnut sent an embassy voicing 
the old claims of the Danish kings he received a 
proudly independent answer from St Olaf. For the 
time being Cnut had to be satisfied, but in 1025 he 
sailed with a fleet to Norway, only to suffer defeat 
at the Battle of the Helge-aa (i.e. Holy River) in 
Skaane, at the hands of the united forces of Norway 
and Sweden. Three years later the attack was 
renewed. Olaf 's strenuous and often cruel advocacy 
of the cause of Christianity had alienated many of 
his subjects and the Swedes had deserted their ally. 
The result was that Olaf fled to Russia and Cnut was 



42 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



declared king of Norway. Two years later the exile 
returned and fell fighting against his own countrymen. 
Cnut was now the mightiest of all Scandinavian kings, 
but on his death in 1035 his empire fell apart ; Norway 
went to his son Svein, Denmark to Harthacnut and 
England to Harold Harefoot. Harold was succeeded 
by Harthacnut in 1040, but neither king was of the 
same stamp as Cnut and they were both overshadowed 
by the great Godwine, earl of Wessex. When Hartha- 
cnut died in 1042 the male line in descent from Cnut 
was extinct, and though some of the Danes were in 
favour of choosing Cnut's sister's son Svein, Godwine 
secured the election of Edward the Confessor. With 
the accession of Edward Danish rule in England was 
at an end and, except for the ambitious expedition of 
Harold Hardrada, foiled at Stamford Bridge in 1066, 
there was no further serious question of a Scandi- 
navian kingship either in or over England. 

The sufferings of England during the second 
period of invasion (980-1016) were probably quite 
as severe as in the worst days of "Alfred — the well- 
known Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, written by Archbishop 
Wulfstan of York in 1014, draws a terrible picture of 
the chaos and anarchy then prevailing — but we must 
remember that neither these years nor the ensuing 
five and thirty years of Danish kingship left as deep 
a mark on England as the earlier wars and the 
settlements resulting from them. There was no 



iv] DANES AND THE EMPIRE 43 



further permanent occupation or division of territory 
and though some of the earldoms and the great 
estates passed into the hands of the king's Danish 
followers, there was no transformation of the whole 
social life of the people such as had taken place in 
the old Danelagh districts. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE VIKINGS IN THE FRANKISH EMPIRE TO THE 
FOUNDING OF NORMANDY (911) 

The years from 850-865 were perhaps the most 
unhappy in the whole history of the sufferings of the 
Frankish empire under Viking attack. The Danes 
now took up more or less permanent quarters, often 
strongly fortified, on the Scheldt, the Somme, the 
Seine, the Loire and the Garonne, while Utrecht, 
Ghent, Amiens, Paris, Chartres, Tours, Blois, Orleans, 
Poitiers, Limoges, Bordeaux and many other towns 
and cities were sacked, often more than once. When 
Hroerekr obtained from the young H&rekr of Denmark 
a concession of certain districts between the Eider 
and the sea, he gave trouble in that direction and 
sailed up the Elbe and the Weser alike. His nephew 
GuSroSr was in occupation of Flanders and the lower 
valley of the Scheldt. 



44 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



Besides these Viking leaders, who were active in 
the Low Countries, we have the names of several 
others who were busy in France itself. The most 
famous of these were the sons of Ragnarr Lot5br6k. 
Berno, who first appeared on the Seine in 855, was 
Bjorn Ironside, while it is quite possible that the 
Sidroc who accompanied him was Sigurd Snake-eye, 
another son of that famous leader. With Bjorn, at 
least according to Norman tradition, came Hastingus 
(O.N. H&steinn), his foster-father. Hasteinn was 
destined to a long and active career. We first hear 
of him in the annals in 866 when he appeared on the 
Loire, and it was he who was one of the chief leaders 
in the great Danish invasion of England in 892-4. 
The sudden appearance of these leaders was undoubt- 
edly due, as suggested in the previous chapter, to the 
turn of events in Denmark at this time. During the 
year of the revolution — 854 — no attacks were made 
on France at all and then immediately after came 
a flood of invaders. The Seine was never free from 
855-62 and the Loire district was little better off. 
The troubled and desolate condition of the country 
may be judged from the numerous royal decrees 
commending those who had been driven from their 
land to the protection of those with whom they had 
taken refuge and exempting them from payment of 
the usual taxes. Many even deserted their Christian 
faith and became worshippers of the gods of the 



iv] CONDITION OF FRANCE 45 



heathen. The difficulties of Charles the Bald were 
greatly increased by succession troubles both in 
Brittany and Aquitaine. Now one, now another 
claimant allied himself with the Northmen, and 
Charles himself was often an offender in this respect. 
He initiated the disastrous policy of buying off attack 
by the payment of large sums of what in England 
would have been called Danegeld. In 859 occurred 
an incident which throws a curious light on the 
condition of the country. The peasants between the 
Seine and the Loire rose of their own accord and 
attacked the Danes in the Seine valley. It is not 
quite clear what followed, but the rising was a failure, 
and possibly it was crushed by the Frankish nobles 
themselves who feared anything in the nature of 
a popular rising made without reference to their own 
authority. In any case the incident bears witness to 
a lack of proper leadership by the nobles. 

After the year 865 the tide of invasion set from 
France towards England. These were the years of 
Alfred's great struggle, and Danish efforts were 
concentrated on the attempt to reduce that monarch 
to submission. The Franks themselves had begun 
to realise the necessity of more carefully organised 
resistance. They began building fortified bridges 
across the rivers at certain points in order to stop 
the passage of Viking ships, and they also fortified 
several of their towns and cities, thus giving perhaps 



46 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



a hint for the policy later adopted in England by 
Edward the Elder. Probably the Franks were not 
above taking lessons from their enemies in the matter 
of fortification, for the latter had already shown 
themselves approved masters of the art in such 
fortified camps as that at Jeufosse on the Seine. In 
another way also had the Danes showed themselves 
ready to adapt themselves to new fighting conditions. 
Not only did they build forts, but we hear of them 
as mounted, and henceforward horses played an im- 
portant part in their equipment both in France and 
England. 

During these years the Vikings made one notable 
expedition far beyond the ordinary range of their 
activity. Starting from the Seine in 859 under the 
leadership of Bjorn and H&steinn, they sailed round 
the Iberian Peninsula through the Straits of 
Gibraltar. They landed in Morocco and carried off 
prisoners many of the Moors or 6 Blue-men ' as they 
called them. Some of these found their way to 
Ireland and are mentioned in certain Irish annals of 
the period. After fresh attacks on Spain they sailed 
to the Balearic Isles, and Roussillon, which they 
penetrated as far as Arles-sur-Tech. They wintered 
in the island of Camargue in the Rhone delta and 
then raided the old Roman cities of Provence and 
sailed up the Rhone itself as far as Valence. In the 
spring of the next year they sailed to Italy. They 



IV] 



VIKINGS IN ITALY 



47 



captured Pisa and Luna (at the mouth of the Magra), 
the latter being taken by a clever stratagem. 
H&steinn feigned himself sick unto death and was 
baptised by the bishop of Luna during a truce. 
Then news came that Hasteinn was dead and the 
Vikings asked Christian burial for him. Permission 
was given and a mock funeral procession entered the 
city. It was in reality a band of armed men in 
disguise and the city was soon captured. The real 
aim of the Vikings in this campaign was the capture 
of Rome with its mighty treasures, but, for some 
reason unknown, they made no advance further south. 
Scandinavian tradition said it was because they 
mistook Luna for Rome and thought their work 
already done ! Sailing back through the Straits of 
Gibraltar they returned to Brittany in 862. The 
Vikings had now almost encircled Europe with their 
attacks, for it was in the year 865 that the Swedish 
Rh6s (Russians) laid siege to Constantinople. 

When Alfred secured a definite peace with the 
Danes in 878, those who were averse to settling 
permanently returned to their old roving life. They 
made their way up the Somme and the Scheldt and 
their progress was not stopped by a brilliant victory 
gained by the young Lewis III in June 881 at 
Saucourt, near the Somme, a victory which is 
celebrated in the famous Ludwigslied. During the 
same years, another Viking host invaded Saxony 



48 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



winning a decisive victory over Duke Bruno on the 
Liineburg Heath. After their defeat at Saucourt 
the main body of the Danes made their way to 
Elsloo on the Meuse whence they ravaged the 
Meuse, Rhine and Moselle districts plundering 
Cologne, Bonn, Coblentz, Aachen, Treves and Metz. 
So alarmed was the emperor Charles the Fat that he 
entered into negotiations with the Danish king GuSroSr 
who was with the forces at Elsloo. He secured 
GuSroSr's acceptance of Christianity and the promise 
of security from further attack at the price of a large 
payment of Danegeld and the concession to GuSroSr 
of the province once held by Hroerekr, with large 
additions. The exact extent of the grant is uncertain, 
but it included the district of Kinnem (round 
Alkmaar and Haarlem) and probably covered the 
greater part of Modern Holland from the Vlie to the 
Scheldt. Here GuSroSr lived in semi-independence 
and might perhaps have established another Nor- 
mandy within the empire had he not been ruined by 
too great ambition. He entirely failed to defend his 
province from attacks, indeed he probably gave them 
covert support ; he intrigued with Hugo, the bastard 
son of Lothair II, against the emperor, married his 
sister Gisla, and then asked for additional territories 
on the Rhine and the Moselle, on the plea that his 
own province included no vine-growing districts. 
Gu8ri)8r had now overstepped all reasonable limits : 



IV] 



SIEGE OF PARIS 



the emperor entered into negotiations with him but 
secured his death by treachery when a meeting was 
arranged near Cleves. With the fall of GuSroSr 
Danish rule in Frisia came to an end, and though we 
hear of isolated attacks even during the early years 
of the 10th century, there was no more serious trouble 
in that district 

In the autumn of 882, encouraged doubtless by 
the news of the death of Lewis III, the Danes returned 
from the Meuse to Flanders and during the next 
three years ravaged Flanders, Brabant and Picardy, 
establishing themselves strongly at Louvain. In 885 
they abandoned these districts and sailed up the 
Seine, after a nine years' absence. In November they 
reached Paris with a fighting force of some 30,000 
men and a fleet of 700 vessels. The passage up 
the river was stopped by fortified bridges and the 
besiegers were fortunate in having as leaders two 
men of great ability and courage, first Gauzlin, Abbot 
of St Germain's, and, later, Count Odo of Paris. 
The position of Paris was at times desperate. The 
Danes were exasperated by the stout defence and 
in their eagerness to plunder further up the river 
dragged many of their ships some two miles overland 
past Paris, and so reached the upper waters of the 
Seine. Later, as the result of peaceful negotiations, 
they obtained permission to pass the bridges on 
condition that they only ravaged Burgundy, leaving 

M. 4 



50 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



the Seine and Marne districts untouched ; thus had 
the provinces of the Frankish empire lost all sense of 
corporate union. The Danes soon made their way 
as far west as Verdun. Here however they were 
disastrously defeated by Odo, now king of the West 
Franks (June 888), and in the next year they finally 
abandoned the siege of Paris making their way to 
Brittany. 

In Brittany they found another army already 
busy. The Bretons had won a great victory in the 
autumn of 888 when only 400 out of some 15,000 
Danes made their way back to their fleet. The great 
here from the Seine now joined forces with the rem- 
nants of this army, but proved powerless against Duke 
Alan, and some returned to Flanders in 890, while 
H&steinn with the rest sailed to the Somme. The 
Danes in Flanders were defeated by Arnulf (after- 
wards emperor) on the Dyle, near Louvain, in 891, 
but it had no great effect for soon after we find them 
again as far east as Bonn. A bad harvest in the 
summer of 892 brought famine in its train and this 
was more effective in ridding the land of invaders. 
In the autumn of the year the whole army, horses 
and all, crossed in one passage in some 250 ships 
from Boulogne to the mouth of the Limen in Kent 
and, shortly after, H&steinn with a fleet of 80 ships 
left the Somme and sailed to Milton in North Kent. 
The story of the campaigns there has already been 



iv] SETTLEMENTS ON THE SEINE 51 



told. For the first time since 840 the Frankish 
empire was free from invaders. Grievous as were 
the losses of the Franks, it is well to remember that 
those of the Danes had been great also. Their fleet 
had been reduced from 700 to 250 ships, and as the 
whole army could still go to England in one crossing, 
that must also have been reduced from thirty to ten 
or fifteen thousand men. 

When the English invasion had failed, those who 
could not settle in England returned to their French 
haunts once more. A small force of eight ships 
and some 200 men sailed up the Seine under one 
'Huncdeus' and gradually their numbers were in- 
creased by fresh arrivals from abroad. They made 
their way north to the Meuse, south to the Loire, and 
east to Burgundy, but their head quarters were on 
* the lower waters of the Seine. In 903 other invaders 
appeared on the Loire under leaders named Baret 
(O.N. B&rSr) and Heric (O.N. Eirikr). The name 
of BartSr is mentioned more than once in the con- 
temporary history of the Norsemen in Ireland, and as 
the Norsemen were driven from Dublin in 902 it is 
probable that these invaders came from there. The 
expedition was not a success and the Vikings soon 
sailed away again. Of the history of the settlers on 
the Seine after 900 we unfortunately know practically 
nothing. The Norman historian Dudo attempted in 
the 11th century to give a connected account but his 

4—2 



52 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



narrative is confused and unreliable. Odo was dead 
and Charles the Simple was more interested in 
conquering Lorraine than defending Neustria. The 
clergy were weary of the ceaseless spoiling of the 
monasteries and anxious for the conversion of the 
heathen, while the nobles were, as usual, selfish and 
careless of the interests of the country at large. 
The Northmen made no great expeditions between 
900 and 910, but maintained a steady hold on the 
Lower Seine and the districts of Bessin and Cotentin. 
They could not extend their territories and the Franks 
could not drive them from the Seine. At length, largely 
through the intervention of the clergy, a meeting was 
arranged between Charles and the Viking leader Rollo 
at St Clair-sur-Epte, before the end of 911. Here the 
province later known as Normandy (including the 
counties of Rouen, Lisieux, Evreux and the district ♦ 
between the rivers Bresle and Epte and the sea) 
was given to Rollo and his followers as a beneficium, 
on condition that he defended the kingdom against 
attack, and himself accepted Christianity. The Danes 
now formed a definite part of the Frankish kingdom 
and occupied a position analogous to that of their 
countrymen in East Anglia, Northumbria and Mercia 
in England, except that the latter after a period 
of freedom had in course of time to pass definitely 
under English rule. 

The story of the foundation of Normandy is 



IV] 



ROLLO 



53 



obscure : still more obscure is the origin and history 
of the leader of the Northmen at this time. Norse 
tradition, as given by Snorri Sturluson, makes Rollo 
to be one Hr61fr, son of Rognvaldr earl of More, who 
was exiled by Harold Fairhair and led a Viking life 
in the west. Norman tradition, as found in Dudo, 
made him out the son of a great noble in Denmark, 
who was expelled by the king and later went to 
England, Frisia and Northern France. Dudo's account 
of the founding of Normandy is so full of errors 
clearly proven that little reliance can be placed on 
his story of the origin of Rollo. The Heimskringla 
tradition was recorded much later, but is probably 
more trustworthy, and it would be no strange thing 
to find a man of Norse birth leading a Danish host. 
Ragnarr LoSbr6k and his sons were Norsemen by 
family but they appear for the most part as leaders 
of Danes. How Rollo came to be the leader of the 
Danes in France and what his previous career had 
been must remain an unsolved mystery. His name 
is not mentioned apart from the settlement of 
Normandy. 

The Normans continued to ravage Brittany with- 
out any interruption and they were soon granted 
the further districts of Bayeux, Seez, Avranches and 
Coutances, which made Brittany and Normandy 
conterminous. 



54 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



CHAPTER V 

THE VIKINGS IN IRELAND TO THE BATTLE 
OF CLONTARF (1014) 

In the history of the Vikings in Ireland we have 
seen how the attempt made by Turges to bring all 
Ireland under one ruler came to nought by his death 
in 845. At first this seems to have thrown the 
Norsemen into confusion and w r e hear of a series of 
defeats. Then, in 849, the invasions developed a new 
phase. Hitherto while the Irish had been weakened 
by much internecine warfare, their enemies had 
worked with one mind and heart. Now we read of 
6 a naval expedition of seven score of the Foreigners 
coming to exercise power over the Foreigners who 
were before them, so that they disturbed all Ireland 
afterwards/ This means that the Danes were now 
taking an active part in the invasions of Ireland, and 
we soon find them disputing the supremacy with the 
earlier Norse settlers. A full and picturesque account 
of the struggle is preserved for us in the second of 
the Three Fragments of Irish Annals copied by 
Dugald MacFirbis. Unfortunately the chronology 
of these annals is in a highly confused state and it is 
often difficult to trace the exact sequence of events. 

When the Norsemen first saw the approaching 



v] 



DANES AND NORSEMEN 



55 



fleet they were much alarmed. Some said it was 
reinforcements from Norway, but others, with keener 
insight, said they were Danes who were coming to 
harry and plunder. A swift vessel was dispatched 
to find out who they were, and when the steersman 
called out to them inquiring from what land they 
came and whether as friend or foe, the only answer 
was a shower of arrows. A fierce battle ensued, in 
which the Danes killed thrice their own number and 
carried off the women-folk and property of the 
Norsemen. In 851 they plundered the Norse settle- 
ments at Dublin and Dundalk, but in the next 
year the Norsemen attacked them in Carlingford 
Lough. At first the Danes were defeated, but then 
their leader cunningly exhorted his men to secure 
by their prayers and alms the patronage of St 
Patrick, who was incensed against the Norsemen 
because of the many evil deeds they had wrought in 
Erin. The battle was renewed and the Danes were 
victorious. After the battle they made rich gifts to 
St Patrick for ( the Danes were a people with a kind 
of piety : they could for a time refrain from meat 
and from women.' After the fight we learn that the 
Danes cooked their meat in cauldrons supported on 
the bodies of their dead foes. The Danes now helped 
Cerbhal, king of Ossory, against the Norsemen who 
were harrying Munster, and henceforward we hear 
again and again how the various Irish factions made 



56 



THE VIKINGS 



[OH. 



use of the dissensions among the invaders to further 
their own ends. 

Matters were further complicated by the fact that 
many of the Irish forsook their Christian baptism 
and joined the Norsemen in their plundering. These 
recreant Irish were known as the Gaill-Gaedhil (i.e. 
the foreign Irish), and played an important part in 
the wars of the next few years. The Gaill-Gaedhil 
were undoubtedly a race of mixed Norse and Gaelic 
stock and we must not imagine that they sprung 
suddenly into existence at this time. Long before 
this the Norsemen and the Gaels must have had 
considerable peaceful intercourse with one another 
in their various settlements, and in accordance with 
well-established Scandinavian custom it would seem 
that many of the Irish were brought up as foster- 
children in Norse households and must soon have 
learned to accept their religion and customs. There 
was also extensive intermarriage between Norsemen 
and Irish. The annals speak of several such unions, 
the most famous being the marriage of Gormflaith, 
afterwards wife of Brian Borumha, to Anlaf Sihtrics- 
son, while in the genealogies of the Norse settlers in 
Iceland at the end of this century, Gaelic names are 
of frequent occurrence. One of the most famous of 
the leaders of these ' foreign Irish ' was Ketill Finn 
(i.e. the White), a Norseman with an Irish nickname. 
These foreign Irish fought either by the side of the 



v] 



OLAF THE WHITE 



57 



foreigners or on their own account and we have an 
interesting story telling how, when Vikings from 
Ireland made an invasion of Cheshire (c. 912), 
Aethelflsed, the lady of the Mercians, sent ambassadors 
to those Irish who were fighting on the side of the 
invaders, calling upon them to forsake the pagans 
and remember the old kindness shown in England to 
Irish soldiers and clergy. 

The troubles between Norsemen and Danes 
were probably responsible for the arrival in Ireland 
in 853 of Amhlaeibh, son of the king of Norway, 
to receive the submission of the foreigners. This 
Amhlaeibh is Olaf the White of Norse tradition. Olaf 
is represented as ruling together with his brother 
Imhar (O.N. Ivarr). The annals are not very good 
authority for the relationship of the Norse leaders 
to one another, and it is quite possible that Ivarr is 
really Ivarr the Boneless, son to Ragnarr LoSbrok. 
Under the strong rule of Olaf and Ivarr Dublin became 
the chief centre of Scandinavian rule in Ireland, 
and the Danes and Norsemen were to some extent 
reconciled to one another. The Irish suffered great 
losses but some brave leaders were found to face the 
Norsemen. Cennedigh, king of Leix (Queen's County), 
came upon a party of them laden with booty ; they 
abandoned the spoil and rushed upon Cennedigh 
with angry barbarous shouts, blowing their trumpets 
and many of them crying nui, nui (i.e. probably, in 



58 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



the old Norse speech, Jcntii, hiui, 6 hasten on, hasten 
on'). Many darts and spears were thrown and at 
last they took to their heavy powerful swords. All 
was however of no avail and Cennedigh won a great 
victory. Less fortunate was Maelciarain, 6 champion 
of the east of Ireland and a hero-plunderer of the 
foreigners.' He was expelled from his kingdom by 
the Leinstermen, who envied him in consequence of 
his many victories over the Norsemen ! 

The activities of Olaf and Ivarr were not confined 
to Ireland. In 866 Olaf paid a visit to Scotland, while 
in 870 both Olaf and Ivarr were present at the siege 
of Dumbarton. If Ivarr is Ivarr the Boneless, he must 
then have gone to England and taken part in the 
martyrdom of St Edmund. In the next year both 
leaders returned to Dublin with a large number of 
prisoners — English, Britons and Picts. In 873 Ivarr, 
'king of the Norsemen of all Ireland and Britain' 
died, and about the same time Olaf returned to 
Norway, possibly to take part in the great fight 
against Harold Fairhair at Hafrsfjord. The Danes 
seem to have taken advantage of the removal of Olaf 
to attempt to throw off the Norse yoke. Fresh 
fighting took place and the Danes under Albdann, i.e. 
Halfdanr, king of Northumbria, were defeated on 
Strangford Lough in 877 with the loss of their leader. 

After 877 the War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill 
notes a period of rest for Ireland, lasting some forty 



v] LIMERICK, CORK, WATERFORD 59 



years. This is true to the extent that no large fleets 
of fresh invaders seem to have come to Ireland during 
this time — the Vikings were too busy elsewhere, both 
in England and the Frankish empire — but there were 
occasional raids from Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Water- 
ford and other towns into various districts of Ireland, 
and the Norsemen were often at variance amongst 
themselves. Dissensions in Dublin were particularly 
violent and so much did they weaken Norse rule 
there that in 902 Dublin fell into the hands of the 
Irish. The Vikings were driven abroad, some going 
to Scotland and others to England, where they 
besieged Chester (v. supra, p. 57). In the year 914 
all the old troubles were renewed. Rognvaldr, a 
grandson of Ivarr, fresh from a great victory off the 
Isle of Man, captured Waterford,^ and two years later 
Sigtryggr, another grandson of Ivarr regained Dublin. 
The Irish attempted resistance under the ardri Niall 
Glundubh, but he fell with twelve other kings in a 
fight at Kilmashogue near Dublin in 919. During 
the next fifty years Ireland was a prey to ceaseless 
attacks by Norwegians and Danes alike. Towards 
the close of the 9th century Limerick had become 
a stronghold of the Norsemen in the west, and from 
there they made their way up the Shannon into the 
heart of the country. Cork was settled in the early 
years of the 10th century, chiefly by Danes, and from 
there all Munster was open to attack. Waterford 



60 



THE VIKINGS 



[oh. 



and Wexford, which stood as a rule in close con- 
nexion with Dublin, served as centres of attack 
against Leinster. The Irish made a stout resistance 
under able leaders and Dublin was ' destroyed ' more 
than once. First among these leaders stands 
Muirchertach 'of the leather cloaks/ son of Mall 
Glundubh, a hero who came forward about the 
year 926. His activities were unceasing. He re- 
peatedly attacked Dublin, took a fleet to the 
Hebrides where he defeated the Vikings, gaining 
much spoil, and finally in 941 made a circuit of 
Ireland, from which he brought back as hostages 
many provincial kings, including the Norse ruler of 
Dublin. More famous still in Irish song and story 
was Cellachan of Cashel. He made war against the 
Vikings in Munster and for a time had the Norse 
kingdom of Waterford under his control. Similarly 
he conquered Limerick, and we find him fighting 
side by side with Norsemen from both these towns. 
During these fifty years the Norse kingdom in Dublin 
stood in close relation with the Scandinavian kingdom 
of Northumbria. Rognvaldr, who died in 912, ruled 
there and so did his brothers Sigtryggr (d. 927) and 
GuSroSr (or Godfrey) (d. 934). The brothers left sons 
known respectively as Anlaf Sihtricsson and Anlaf 
Godfreyson. The latter took part in the great fight at 
Brunanburh and died in 939. Anlaf Sihtricsson was 
destined to a longer career. He would seem to have 



v] 



ANLAF CUARAN 



61 



spent his early years in Scotland where he married 
king Constantine's daughter. It is uncertain whether 
he fought at Brunanburh, but he came to Northumbria 
in 941 and captured York. He was expelled from 
Northumbria in 944 or 945 and retired to Dublin, 
and the rest of his life was chiefly spent in fighting in 
Ireland. He was in close alliance with the Norsemen 
in Man and the Western Islands, and was, for some 
thirty years, the most powerful Norse ruler in Ireland. 
Then came the first great blow to Norse rule in 
Ireland. In 980 Maelsechlainn II, the ardri, won 
a great victory at Tara over the foreigners of Dublin 
and the Islands in which Anlaf s son was slain. The 
power of the kingdom of Dublin was effectually 
broken. The Norsemen were compelled to liberate 
all the hostages in their custody, to pay a fine of 
2000 oxen and to remit the tribute which they had 
imposed on all Ireland from the Shannon eastwards 
to the sea. Anlaf abandoned his authority and 
retired on a pilgrimage to Iona, where he died in the 
same year an inmate of its monastery. 

In the meantime events, fraught with important 
consequences for Norse rule in that country, were 
gradually developing in a distant quarter of Ireland. In 
the province of Munster the Dalcassian line of princes 
first comes into prominence about the middle of the 
10th century, and the two most famous of these 
princes were the brothers Mathgamhain and Brian, 



62 



THE VIKINGS 



[OH. 



commonly known as Brian Borumha. Together the 
brothers conquered Munster in spite of the support 
given to the Irish by the Viking settlers, and when 
their success aroused Ivarr, the ruler of Limerick, 
they attacked him and won a great victory at 
Sulcoit near Tipperary (968). Limerick was captured, 
Mathgamhain died in 976 and Brian was soon 
acknowledged king of all Munster. He next became 
master of Leinster, but his rapid advance brought 
him into conflict with the ardri and by a compact 
made in 998, Maelsechlainn practically surrendered 
the southern half of Ireland to Brian. The ruler 
of Dublin at this time was Sigtryggr of the Silken 
Beard, son of Anlaf and Gormflaith, sister of 
Maelmordha, king of Leinster. In 1000 Leinster 
with the support of the Norsemen in Dublin revolted, 
but Brian defeated them and captured Dublin, giving 
his daughter in marriage to Sigtryggr and himself 
marrying Gormflaith. In 1002 Maelsechlainn sub- 
mitted to Brian and the latter became ardri. There 
followed twelve years of peace, but Brian's marriage 
with Gormflaith was his undoing. Quarrelling with 
her husband, she stirred up Maelmordha of Leinster 
against him. An alliance was formed between 
Maelmordha and Sigtryggr, and Gormflaith dispatched 
embassies to all the Viking settlements in the West, 
summoning them to the aid of Sigtryggr in a great 
fight against Brian. Sigtryggr secured the help 



v] BATTLE OF CLONTARF 63 



of Earl Sigurd of the Orkneys and North Scotland 
by promise of the kingship of Dublin. Ships came 
from all parts of the Viking world, from Northumbria, 
from Man and the Western Islands, from Scotland 
and the Orkneys, and even from Iceland. Dublin 
was fixed as the trysting-place and Palm Sunday 
1014 was to be the time of meeting. Brian mustered 
all the forces of Munster and Connaught and was 
joined in half-hearted fashion by Maelsechlainn, who 
was really waiting to see which way the fortunes 
of war would turn. Brian advanced into the plain 
of Fingall, north of Dublin, and the two armies 
faced one another at Clontarf all Passion week. 
The Norsemen had learned by magic incantations 
that if the fight took place before Good Friday their 
chiefs would perish and their forces be routed, while 
if the fight took place on Good Friday Brian himself 
would perish but the Irish would win the day. So 
they waited until the Friday and then made their 
attack. The fight was long and the slaughter was 
terrible. Brian and Sigurd were themselves numbered 
among the slain. In the end the Norsemen were 
defeated and Maelsechlainn completed their dis- 
comfiture when he cut down the fugitives as they 
tried to cross the bridge leading to Dublin and so 
reach their ships. No fight was more famous in 
Irish history and it seems to have appealed with 
equally strong force to Scandinavian imagination. 



64 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



Clontarf and Brunanburh are the two great Viking 
battles which find record in Scandinavian saga, and 
in the story of Burnt Njal 1 we have a vivid account 
both of the actual battle and of the events leading 
up to it. Yet more interesting perhaps is the old 
lay preserved to us, the Song of the Valkyries, who 
that same day were seen in Caithness riding twelve 
together to a bower where they set up a loom of 
which men's heads were the weights, men's entrails 
the warp and woof, while a sword was the shuttle 
and the reels were arrows. They wove the web 
of war and foretold the fate of king Sigtryggr and 
Earl Sigurd as well as the sharp sorrow which 
would befall the Irish 2 . The Norse world was full 
of this and like portents and there can be no question 
that the Vikings were themselves conscious that the 
battle of Clontarf marked a very definite epoch in 
the history of the Vikings in the West and in Ireland 
more particularly. The Norsemen remained in 
possession of their cities, Sigtryggr continued as 
king of Dublin, but gradually the fortunes of the 
Norse settlers tended to become merged in the history 
of the nation as a whole and there was no further 
question of Scandinavian supremacy in Ireland. 

1 English version by Sir G. W. Dasent. 

2 This song was probably composed soon after the events with 
which it is concerned and was first rendered into English by the poet 
Gray under the title The Fatal Sisters. 



vi] 



SODOR AND MAN 



65 



CHAPTER VI 

THE VIKINGS IN THE ORKNEYS, SCOTLAND, 
THE WESTERN ISLANDS AND MAN 

When the Vikings sailed to England and Ireland 
in the late 8th and early 9th centuries their most 
natural path was by the Orkneys and Shetlands and 
round the Western Islands of Scotland. We have 
seen how early they formed settlements in the 
Shetlands, and they soon reached the Orkneys and 
the Hebrides. From the Orkneys they crossed to 
the mainland, to Sutherland and Caithness — the very 
names bear witness to Scandinavian occupation — 
while Galloway (i.e. the land of the Gaill-Gaedhil, 
v. supra, p. 56) was settled from the Isle of Man. 
Already in the 9th century the Norse element in 
the Hebrides was so strong that the Irish called 
the islands Innsi-Gall (i.e. the islands of the 
foreigners), and their inhabitants were known as 
Gaill-Gaedhil. The Norsemen called the islands 
SvSr-eyjar (i.e. Southern Islands) in contrast to 
the Orkneys and Shetlands, which were known as 
Norftreyjar, and the name survives in the composite 
bishopric of 'Sodor' and Man, which once formed part 
of the archdiocese of Trondhjem in Norway. The 
Isle of Man was plundered almost as early as any 
of the islands of the West (v. swpra, p. 12), and it 



M. 



5 



66 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



was probably from Man that the Norse settlements 
in Cumberland and Westmorland were established. 
Olaf the White and Ivarr made more than one 
expedition from Ireland to the lowlands of Scotland, 
and the former was married to Au8r the daughter of 
Ketill Flatnose who had made himself the greatest 
chieftain in the Western Islands. After the battle of 
Hafrsfjord, when Harold Fairhair had finally crushed 
his rivals in Norway itself, so powerful were the Norse 
settlements in the West that he felt his position 
would be insecure until he had received their sub- 
mission. Accordingly he made a great expedition 
to the Shetlands, Orkneys and the west coast 
of Scotland, fulfilled this purpose and entrusted the 
Northern Islands to Sigurd, brother of Rognvaldr, 
earl of More, as his vassal. 

The history of the Norse settlements in the 
Orkneys is well and fully told in the Orkneyingasaga 1 . 
The first Orkney-earl was the above-named Sigurd. 
He entered into an alliance with Thorstein the Red, 
son to Olaf the White, and together they conquered 
Caithness and Sutherland, as far south as the river 
Oikel on the borders of Ross and Cromarty. Sigurd's 
son Einar, known as Turf-Einar because he first 
taught the islanders to cut peat for fuel, founded 
a long line of earls of the Orkneys. He had a 

1 English translation by Sir G. W. Dasent. 



VI] 



THE ORKNEY-EARLS 



67 



quarrel with Harold Fairhair and when that king 
imposed a fine on the islanders for the murder of his 
son and the farmers could not pay it, Einar paid it 
himself on condition that the peasants surrendered 
their $$al rights, i.e. their rights of possession in 
the lands they cultivated. Turf-Einar' s son Sigurd the 
Stout was the most famous of all the Orkney-earls, 
renowned both as warrior and poet. He conquered 
Sutherland, Caithness, Ross, Murray, Argyle, the 
Hebrides and Man, securing the support of the men 
of Orkney by giving them back their 6%al. He 
married a daughter of Malcolm king of Scotland, 
and met his end, as we have already seen, fighting 
on the side of the heathen Norsemen in the battle 
of Clontarf in 1014. After this the power of the 
Orkney-earls declined. The Norse line of earls was 
replaced by one of Scottish descent in 1231, but the 
islands did not pass definitely to the Scottish crown 
until the 15th century 1 . 

Of the Norse settlements in the Hebrides we 
have no such definite or continuous record. Mention 
is made in Irish annals of the middle of the 
9th century of a king in the Hebrides — one GuSroSr 
son of Fergus — whose very name shows him to have 
been one of the Gaill-Gaedhil. Ketill Finn (v. supra, 

1 They were pledged by Christian I of Denmark and Norway for 
the payment of the dowry of his daughter Margaret to James III in 
1460 and the pledge was never redeemed. 

5—2 



68 



THE VIKINGS 



[oh 



p. 56) was another such. In the latter half of th( 
9th century Ketill Flatnose was the chief Norse 
leader in the Hebrides until his power was destroyec 
by Harold Fairhair. Many of the settlers then 
betook themselves to Iceland, the most famous oi 
them being Au8r the deep-thoughted, widow oi 
Olaf the White and daughter of Ketill. Norse rule 
was all powerful during the 10th and 11th centuries. 
There was a line of kings but we find ruling side by 
side with them certain officers known as 'lawmen' 
(v. infra, p. 103), while in the late 10th and for 
the greater part of the 11th century, the Hebrides 
were under the sovereignty of the Orkney-earls. 
Norse rule in the Hebrides did not finally come to 
an end until 1266 when Magnus H&konsson, king 
of Norway, renounced all claims to the islands. 

The early history of the settlements in Man is 
equally obscure. At first the island suffered from 
repeated raids, then about the middle of the 
9th century it passed under the authority of the 
kings of Dublin and remained so until, with the 
Hebrides and Western Scotland generally, it was 
conquered by Sigurd the Orkney-earl. From the 
Orkney-earls it passed to the great conqueror 
Godred Crovan— the King Gorry or Orry of Manx 
tradition — who came from the Hebrides, and his suc- 
cessors down to the cession of the islands in 1266 
were known as kings of Man and the Isles. 



vii] VIKINGS IN THE BALTIC 69 



Of the details of the settlement of the Scottish 
mainland, of Caithness, Sutherland, and Galloway, 
of the occupation of Cumberland and Westmor- 
land we know almost nothing, but when we speak 
later of Norse influence in these districts we shall 
realise how strong was their hold on them. Our 
knowledge of the Norse occupation of Man and 
the Islands is somewhat scanty in detail, but there 
can be no question that their settlements in lands 
often closely resembling in physical features their 
own home-country were of the highest importance. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE VIKINGS IN BALTIC LANDS AND RUSSIA 

The activities of the Northmen during the Viking 
age were not confined to the lands west and south 
of their original homes : the Baltic was as familiar 
to them as the North Sea, to go ( east- viking ' was 
almost as common as to go * west-viking ' and 
Scandinavian settlements were founded on the shores 
of the Baltic and far inland along the great waterways 
leading into the heart of Russia. As was to be 
expected from their geographical position it was 
Danes and Swedes rather than Norwegians who were 
active in Baltic lands, the Danes settling chiefly on 



70 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



the Pomeranian coast among the Wends, while the 
Swedes occupied lands further east and founded the 
Scandinavian kingdom of Russia. 

Already in the early years of the 9th century we 
find the Danish king GuSroSr now making war 
against his Slavonic neighbours in Mecklenburg- 
Schwerin, now intriguing with them against the 
emperor. Mention is made of more than one 
town on the southern coast of the Baltic bearing 
an essentially Scandinavian name, pointing to the 
existence of extensive settlements. Interesting 
evidence of this eastward movement is also to be 
found in the Life of St Anskar. There we learn 
how, soon after 830, a Danish fleet captured a city 
in the land of the Slavs, with great riches, and we 
hear in 853 how the Swedes were endeavouring to 
reconquer Kurland which had been under their rule, 
but had now thrown off the yoke and fallen a prey 
to a fleet of Danish Vikings — possibly the one 
just mentioned. St Anskar himself undertook the 
education of many Wendish youths who had been 
entrusted to him. 

This and other evidence prepare us for the 
establishment, in the tenth century, of the most 
characteristic of all Viking settlements, that of 
J6msborg on the Island of Wollin at the mouth 
of the Oder. According to tradition King Gorm 
the Old conquered a great kingdom in Wendland, 



vii] THE JOMSVlKINGS 71 



but it was to his son Harold Bluetooth that the 
definite foundation of J6msborg was ascribed. For 
many years there had been an important trading 
centre at Julin on the Island of Wollin, where 
traders from Scandinavia, Saxony, Russia and many 
other lands met together to take part in the rich 
trade between north and south, east and west, which 
passed through Julin, standing as it did on one 
of the great waterways of central Europe. Large 
finds of Byzantine and Arabic coins bear witness 
to the extensive trade with Greece and the Orient 
which passed through Julin, while the Silberberg, 
on which Jomsborg once stood, is so called from 
the number of silver coins from Frisia, Lorraine, 
Bavaria and England which have been found there. 
It was no doubt in the hope of securing some fuller 
share in this trade that Harold established the great 
fortress of J6msborg and entrusted its defence to a 
warrior-community on whom he imposed the strictest 
rules of organisation. The story of the founding 
of Jomsborg is told in the late and untrustworthy 
JdmsviMngasaga, but, while we must reject many 
of the details there set forth, it is probable that the 
rules of the settlement as given there are based on a 
genuine tradition, and they give us a vivid picture 
of life in a Viking warrior-community. No one 
under eighteen or over fifty years of age was 
admitted to their fellowship, and neither birth nor 



n THE VIKINGS [ch. 

friendship, only personal bravery, could qualify a 
man for admission. No one was allowed to continue 
a member who uttered words of fear, or who fled 
before one who was his equal in arms and strength. 
Every member was bound to avenge a fallen 
companion as if he were his brother. No women 
were allowed within the community, and no one was 
to be absent for more than three days without 
permission. All news was to be told in the first 
instance to their leader and all plunder was to be 
shared at a common stake. The harbour of J6msborg 
could shelter a fleet of 300 vessels and was protected 
by a mole with twelve iron gates. 

The J6msvikings played an important if stormy 
part in the affairs of the three Scandinavian kingdoms 
in the later years of the 10th and the early 11th 
century. Many of them came to England in the 
train of king Svein, while Jarl Thorkell was for a 
time in the service of Ethelred the Unready. The 
decline of J6msborg as a Viking stronghold dates 
from its devastation by Magnus the Good in 1043, 
but the importance of Julin as a trading centre 
continued unimpaired for many years to come. 

From Jomsborg Harold Bluetooth's son H&kon 
made an attack on Samland in the extreme east 
of Prussia, but the real exploitation of the Eastern 
Baltic fell as was natural to the Swedes rather than 
to the Danes. We have already mentioned their 



vii] FOUNDING OF THE RUSSIAN KINGDOM 73 



presence in Kurland on the Gulf of Riga, and we 
learn from Swedish runic inscriptions of expeditions 
to Samland, to the Semgalli (in Kurland) and to the 
river Duna. The important fortified port of Seeburg 
was probably near to Riga, while the chief trade 
route from the island of Gothland lay round cape 
Domesnaes (note the Scandinavian name) to the 
mouth of the Duna. 

The chief work of the Swedes was however to be 
done in lands yet further south, in the heart of the 
modern empire of Russia in Europe. 

The story of the founding of the Russian kingdom 
is preserved to us in the late 10th century chronicle 
of the monk Nestor, who tells us that in the year 859 
' Varangians' came over the sea and took tribute 
from various Finnish, Tatar and Slavonic peoples 
inhabiting the forest regions round Lake Ilmen, 
between Lake Ladoga and the upper waters of the 
Dnieper. Again he tells us that in 862 the Varangians 
were driven over seas and tribute was refused, but 
soon the tribes quarrelled among themselves and 
some suggested that they should find a prince who 
might rule over them and keep the peace. So they 
sent across the sea to the Varangians, to the ' Rus,' 
for such is the name of these Varangians, just as 
others are called Swedes, Northmen, Anglians, Goths, 
saying that their land was great and powerful but 
there was no order within it and asking them to 



74 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



come and rule over them. Three brothers with 
their followers were chosen : the eldest, Rurik 
(O.N. Hroerekr), settled in Novgorod, the second in 
Bieloozero, the third in Truvor in Izborsk. Three 
years later two of the brothers died and Rurik took 
control of the whole of the settlements, dividing 
the land among his men. In the same year two of 
Rurik's followers, Askold (O.N. Hoskuldr) and Dir 
(O.N. Dyri), setting out for Constantinople, halted at 
Kiev and there founded a kingdom, which in 882 
was conquered by Rurik's successor Oleg (O.N. Helgi) 
and, as the mother of all Russian cities, became the 
capital of the Russian kingdom. 

There is a certain naivete about this story which 
is characteristic of the monkish chronicler generally, 
and it is clear that, after the usual manner of the 
annalist who is compiling his record long after the 
events described, Nestor has grouped together 
under one or two dates events which were spread 
over several years, but the substantial truth of the 
narrative cannot be impugned and receives abundant 
confirmation from various sources. 

The earliest evidence for the presence of these 
' Rus ' in Eastern Europe is found in the story of the 
Byzantine embassy to the emperor Lewis the Pious in 
839 {v. supra, p. 19), when certain people called 'Rhos/ 
who had been on a visit to Constantinople, came in 
the train of the embassy and asked leave to return 



vn] 



THE RUS 



75 



home through the empire. Enquiries were made 
and it was found that these 'Rhos' were Swedes. 
This would point to the presence of ' Rus ' in Russia 
at a date earlier than that given by Nestor, and 
indeed the rapid extension of their influence indicates 
a period of activity considerably longer than that 
allowed by him. These 6 Rus ' or ' Rhos ' soon came 
into relations, both of trade and war, with the 
Byzantine empire. We have preserved to us from 
the years 911 and 944 commercial treaties made 
between the 'Rus' and the Greeks showing that 
they brought all kinds of furs and also slaves to 
Constantinople, receiving in exchange various articles 
of luxury including gold and silver ornaments, silks 
and other rich stuffs. The names of the signatories 
to these treaties are, on the side of the 6 Rus/ almost 
entirely of Scandinavian origin and may to some 
extent be shown to be of definitely Swedish 
provenance. About the year 950, the emperor 
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, writing a tractate on 
the administration of the empire, describes how 
traders from various parts of Russia assemble at 
Kiev and sail down the Dnieper on their way to 
Constantinople. Their course down the Dnieper was 
impeded by a series of rapids, and Constantine gives 
their names both in ' Russian ' and in Slavonic form, 
and though the names are extremely corrupt in 
their Greek transcription there is no mistaking that 



76 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



the ' Russian' names are really forms belonging to 
some Scandinavian dialect. 

The Rus were also well known as warriors and 
raiders. In 865 they sailed down the Dnieper, 
across the Black Sea and made their way into the 
Sea of Marmora. Their fleet was dispersed by a 
storm, but they were more successful in 907 when 
Oleg with some 2000 ships harried the environs 
of Constantinople and was bought off by a heavy 
tribute. These attacks were continued at intervals 
during the next century. 

We also find a good deal of interesting information 
about these ' Rfts,' as they are called, in various Arab 
historians. We hear how they sailed their vessels 
down the chief waterways and had such a firm hold 
on the Black Sea that by the year 900 it was already 
known as the Russian Sea. Often they dragged their 
vessels overland from one stream to another, and 
thus they made their way from the upper waters 
of the Don down the Volga to the Caspian Sea. 
But not only do we have a description of their 
journey ings we also learn a good deal of their 
customs and habits, and, though at times the informa- 
tion given is open to suspicion, archaeological research 
tends to confirm the statements of these historians 
and to show that the civilisation of the ' Rus ' closely 
resembled that of the Scandinavian peoples generally 
in the Viking age. 



vii] RUS AND VARANGIAN 77 



The identification of the ancient ' Rus ' with the 
Swedes was long and hotly contested by Slavonic 
patriots but there is now a general consensus of 
opinion that the evidence for it is too strong to be 
overthrown. Not only have we the evidence given 
above but also the very names 'Rus' and ' Varangian' 
can be satisfactorily explained only on this theory. 
The name 1 Rus' is the Slavonic, 'Rhos' the Greek, 
and ( Rils ' the Arabic form of the Finnish name for 
Sweden, viz. Ruotsi. This name was originally derived 
from Ro\r or Ro\in^ the name of certain districts 
of Upland and Ostergotland, whose inhabitants were 
known as Rods-karlar or Rods-mcen. The Finns 
had early come into relation with the Swedes and 
they used the name of those people with whom they 
were in earliest and most intimate contact for the 
whole Swedish nationality. When these Swedes 
settled in Russia the Finns applied the same term 
to the new colonists and the term came to be 
adopted later into the various Slavonic dialects. 

We are most familiar with the term 6 Varangian ' 
or 'Variag,' to use the Slavonic form, as applied to 
the famous guard of the Byzantine emperors, which 
seems to have been formed in the latter half of the 
10th century and was largely composed of Norwegian, 
Icelandic and Swedish recruits. In Russian and 
Arabic historians on the other hand the term is 
used rather in an ethnographic or geographic sense. 



78 



THE VIKINGS 



[oh. 



We have seen that it was thus used by Nestor, and 
similarly we find the Baltic commonly spoken of as 
the 6 Varangian ' Sea both in Russian and in Arabic 
records. All the evidence tends to show that this was 
the earlier sense of the term and we find it gradually 
displacing the term 'Rhds' even in Byzantine 
historians. The word itself is of Scandinavian origin 
and means ' those who are bound together by a 
pledge.' The theory which best explains its various 
uses is that put forward by Dr Vilhelm Thomsen, viz. 
that it originated among the Northmen who settled 
in Russia, i.e. among the ancient Russ, and that 
under that term they denoted those peoples west 
of the Baltic who were related to them by nationality. 

From the Russ the word passed into the Slavonic 
language as variag 1 , into the Greek as barangoi — 
where it was often used in the restricted sense 
of members of the imperial guard largely recruited 
from this nation, — and into the Arabic as varank. 
Dr Thomsen adduces two happy parallels for the 
somewhat remarkable history of the terms 6 Russian ' 
and 'Varangian.' The term ' Russian' came to be 
used as their own name by the Slavonic peoples, 
who were once ruled over by the Russ, in much the 
same way that the term 6 Frankish ' or ■ French ' was 
adopted by the Gaulish population of France from 

1 The word variag in Modern Kussian means a pedlar and bears 
witness to the strong commercial instincts of the Viking. 



vii] ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 79 



its Germanic conquerors. The term ' Varangian/ 
ultimately the name for a nation or group of nations, 
came to be used of a military force once largely 
recruited from those nations, much in the same way 
as the term 6 Swiss ' was applied to the Papal guard 
long after that guard had ceased to be recruited from 
the Swiss nation exclusively. 

The belief in the Scandinavian origin of the Russ 
is amply supported by archaeological evidence. The 
large number of Arabic coins found in Sweden (more 
especially in Gothland) and in Russia itself points 
to an extensive trade with the Orient whose route 
lay chiefly to the east of the Caspian Sea and then 
along the valley of the Volga. The dates of the 
coins point to the years between 850 and 1000 as 
those of most active intercourse with the East. 
Equally interesting is the large number of western 
coins, more especially Anglo-Saxon pennies and 
sceatts, which have been found in Russia. They 
probably represent portions of our Danegeld which 
had come into the hands of the Swedes either in trade 
or war. Viking brooches of the characteristic oval 
shape with the familiar zoomorphic ornamentation 
have been found in Western Russia, and one stone 
with a runic inscription, belonging to the 11th 
century and showing evidence of connexion with 
Gothland, has been found in a burial mound in 
Berezan, an island at the mouth of the Dnieper. 



80 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



Professor Braun says that no others have been found 
because of the rarity of suitable stone. 

How long the Russ maintained their distinctively 
Scandinavian nationality it is difficult to determine. 
Oleg's grandson Svjatoslav bore a distinctively Slav- 
onic name, and henceforward the names of the 
members of the royal house are uniformly Slavonic, 
but the connexion with Sweden was by no means for- 
gotten. Svjatoslav's son Vladimir the Great secured 
himself in the rulership of Novgorod in 980 by the aid 
of variags from over the sea and established a band 
of variag warriors in his chief city of Kiev. But the 
Viking age was drawing to a close. Variag auxiliaries 
are mentioned for the last time in 1043 and it is 
probable that by the middle of the 11th century 
the Scandinavian settlers had been almost completely 
Slavonicised. Of their permanent influence on the 
Russian people and on Russian institutions it is, in 
the present state of our knowledge, almost impossible 
to speak. Attempts have been made to distinguish 
Scandinavian elements in the old Russian law and 
language but with no very definite results, and we 
must content ourselves with the knowledge that the 
Vikings were all powerful in Western and Southern 
Russia during the greater part of two centuries, 
carrying on an extensive trade with the East, 
establishing Novgorod, ' the new town/ on the Volga 
under the name HolmgarW and founding a dynasty 



vii] VIKINGS IN GREECE 81 



which ruled in Kiev and became a considerable 
power in eastern Europe negotiating on terms of 
equality with the Byzantine emperors. 

Mention has already been made more than once 
of the way in which the Northmen entered the service 
of the emperors at Constantinople or MiMagarftr, 
' the great city/ as they called it. From here they 
visited all parts of the Mediterranean. When Harold 
Hardrada was in the service of the emperor he sailed 
through the Grecian archipelago to Sicily and Africa. 
There he stayed several years, conquering some 
eighty cities for his master and gaining rich treasures 
for himself. One interesting memorial of these 
journeys still remains to us. At the entrance to 
the arsenal in Venice stands a marble lion brought 
from Athens in 1687. Formerly it stood at the 
harbour of the Piraeus, known thence as the 
Porto Leone. On the sides of the lion are carved 
two long runic inscriptions arranged in snake-like 
bands. The runes are too much worn to be deciphered 
but they are unquestionably of Scandinavian origin 
and the snake-bands closely resemble those that may 
be seen on certain runic stones in Sweden. The 
carving was probably done by Swedes from Uppland 
about the middle of the 10th century. One can 
hardly imagine a more striking illustration of the 
extent and importance of the Viking movement in 
Europe. 



6 



82 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



CHAPTER VIII 

VIKING CIVILISATION 

The activities of the Vikings were all-embracing, 
and before any attempt can be made to estimate 
their influence in the various countries which came 
permanently under their rule, or were brought more 
or less closely into touch with them, some account, 
however slight, must be given of Scandinavian 
civilisation at this time, both on its spiritual and on 
its material sides. For the former aspect we must 
turn chiefly to the poems and sagas of old Norse 
literature, for the latter to the results of modern 
archaeological research. So far as the poems and 
sagas are concerned it is well to remember that they 
were to a large extent composed in Iceland and 
reflect the somewhat peculiar type of civilisation 
developed there at a period just subsequent to the 
Viking age itself. This civilisation difters necessarily 
from that developed in Scandinavia or in the other 
Scandinavian settlements, in that it was free from 
Western influence, but this is to some extent 
compensated for by the fact that we get in Iceland 
a better picture of the inherent possibilities of 
Viking civilisation when developed on independent 
lines. 



viii] CIVILISATION AND BARBARISM 83 



At the beginning of the Viking age the Scandi- 
navian peoples were in a transitional stage of 
development ; on the one hand there was still much, 
both in their theory and in their practice of life, that 
savoured of primitive barbarism, while on the other, 
in the development of certain phases of human 
activity, more especially in those of war, trade, and 
social organisation, they were considerably ahead 
of many of their European neighbours. More than 
one writer has commented upon the strange blending 
of barbarism and culture which constitutes Viking 
civilisation : it is evident when we study their 
daily life, and it is emphasised in the story of 
their slow and halting passage from heathenism to 
Christianity. 

We need not travel far to find examples of their 
barbarism. Their cruelty in warfare is a common- 
place among the historians of the period. When the 
Irish found the Danes cooking their food on spits 
stuck in the bodies of their fallen foes (v. supra, 
p. 55) and asked why they did anything so hateful, 
the answer came ' Why not ? If the other side had 
been victorious they would have done the same with 
us/ The custom of cutting the blood-eagle (i.e. 
cutting the ribs in the shape of an eagle and pulling 
the lungs through the opening) was a well-known 
form of vengeance taken on the slayer of one's father 
if captured in battle, and is illustrated in the story 

6—2 



84 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



of the sons of Ragnarr Lo3br6k himself. Another 
survival of primitive life was the famous Berserk 
fury, when men in the heat of battle were seized 
with sudden madness and, according to the popular 
belief, received a double portion of strength, and lost 
all sense of bodily pain, a custom for which Dr Bugge 
finds an apt parallel in the 'running amok' of the 
races of the Malay peninsula. Children were tossed 
on the point of the spear and the Viking leader who 
discouraged the custom was nicknamed barnakarl, 
i.e. children's friend. 

In contrast to these methods of warfare stands 
their skill in fortification, in which they taught many 
lessons both to their English and to their Frankish 
adversaries, their readiness in adapting themselves 
to new conditions of warfare (v. supra, p. 46), and 
their clever strategy, whereby they again and again 
outwitted their opponents. 

The same contrast meets us when we consider the 
position of women among them. The chroniclers 
make many references to their lust after women. 
We hear in an English chronicler how they combed 
their hair, indulged in sabbath baths, often changed 
their clothes and in various ways cultivated bodily 
beauty 'in order that they might the more readily 
overcome the chastity of the matrons, and make 
concubines even of the daughters of the nobility/ 
Wandering from country to country they often had 



viii] THE POSITION OF WOMEN 



85 



wives in each, and polygamy would seem to have 
been the rule, at least among the leaders. In Ireland 
we hear of what seem to have been veritable harems, 
while in Russia we are told of the great grandson 
of Rurik, the founder of the Russian kingdom, that 
he had more than 800 concubines, though we may 
perhaps suspect the influence of Oriental custom in 
this case. Yet, side by side with all this, the legitimate 
wife was esteemed and honoured, and attained a 
position and took a part in national life which was 
quite unusual in those days. In the account of an 
Arabic embassy to the Vikings of the west (v. supra, 
p. 20) we have a vivid picture of the freedom of 
their married life. AuSr, the widow of Olaf the 
White, after the fall of her son Thorstein, took 
charge of the fortunes of her family and is one 
of the figures that stand out most clearly in the 
early settlement of Iceland. We have only to turn 
to the Icelandic sagas to see before us a whole 
gallery of portraits, dark and fair alike, of women 
cast in heroic mould, while the stone at Dyrna in 
Hadeland, bearing the runic inscription, 'Gunvor, 
daughter of Thirek, built a bridge to commemorate 
her daughter Astrid, she was the most gracious 
maiden in Hadeland/ gives us one of the most attrac- 
tive pictures of womanhood left to us from the Viking- 
age. It must be added however that beside the 
runic inscription, the stone bears carvings of the 



86 



THE VIKINGS 



Christ-child, the star in the east and the three kings, 
and this may serve to remind us that the age was 
one in which the peoples of the North passed from 
heathenism to Christianity, though the passage was 
a slow one and by no means complete even at the 
close of the period. 

It is probable that the first real knowledge of 
'the white Christ' came, as is so often the case, 
with the extension of trade — Frisians trading with 
Scandinavia, and Danes and Swedes settling in Frisia 
and elsewhere for the same purpose. St Willibrord 
at the beginning of the 8th century and Archbishop 
Ebbo of Rheims in 823, as papal legate among the 
northern peoples, undertook missions to Denmark, 
but it was in 826, when king Harold was baptised 
at Mainz, that the first real opportunity came for the 
preaching of Christianity in Denmark. Harold was 
accompanied on his return by St Anskar, a monk 
from Corvey and a man filled with religious zeal. 
After two years' mission in Denmark St Anskar 
sailed to Sweden, where he was graciously received 
at Bjorko by king Bjorn. He made many converts 
and on his return home in 831 was made archbishop 
of Hamburg and given, jointly with Ebbo, jurisdiction 
over the whole of the northern realms. Hamburg 
was devastated in 845 and St Anskar was then 
appointed to the Jbishopric of Bremen, afterwards 
united to a restored archbishopric of Hamburg. He 



viii] ADVANCE OF CHRISTIANITY 87 



laboured in Denmark once more and established 
churches at Slesvik and Ribe. He conducted a 
second mission to Sweden and his missionary zeal 
remained unabated until his death in 865 ; his work 
was carried on by his successor and biographer 
St Rimbert and by many others. Their preaching 
was however confined to Jutland and South Sweden 
and there is no evidence of any popular movement 
towards Christianity. Gorm the Old was a stead- 
fast pagan but Gorm's son Harold Bluetooth was 
a zealous promoter of Christianity. His enthusiasm 
may have been exaggerated by monastic chroniclers 
in contrast to the heathenism of his son Svein, but 
with the accession of Cnut all fears of a reversion 
to heathendom were at an end. Cnut was a devout 
son of the Church. 

The first Danish settlers in England were entirely 
heathen in sentiment, but they were soon brought 
into close contact with Christianity, and the terms 
of the peace of Edward and Guthrum in the early 
years of the 10th century show that already 
Christianity was making its way in the Danelagh. 
In the course of this century both archbishoprics 
were held by men of Danish descent and the excesses 
of the early 11th century were due, not to the 
Danish settlers, but to the heathen followers of 
Olaf Tryggvason and Svein Forkbeard. Similarly 
the Danish settlers in Normandy were within a few 



88 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



years numbered among the Church's most enthusiastic 
supporters, and Rollo's own son and successor William 
was anxious to become a monk. 

The story of the preaching of Christianity in 
Norway is a chequered one. The first attempt to 
establish the Christian faith was made by H&kon 
Aftalsteinsf6stri (v. supra, p. 36). Baptised and 
educated in England, he began warily, inducing those 
who were best beloved by him to become Christians, 
but he soon came into conflict with the more ardent 
followers of paganism. At the great autumn festival 
at Lade when the cups of memory were drunk, 
Earl Sigurd signed a cup to Odin, but the king 
made the sign of the cross over his cup. Earl Sigurd 
pacified popular clamour by saying that the king 
had made the sign of the hammer and consecrated 
the cup to Thor. The next day the king would not 
eat the horse-flesh used in their offerings nor drink 
the blood from it : the people were angry and the 
king compromised by inhaling the steam from the 
offering through a linen cloth placed over the sacri- 
ficial kettle, but no one was satisfied and at the 
next winter-feast the king had to eat some bits 
of horse-liver and to drink crossless all the cups 
of memory. H&kon died a Christian but Eyvindr 
Skaldaspillir in Hdhonarmdl describes how he was 
welcomed by Odin to Valhalla, 

Earl H&kon Sigurdson, nicknamed bldt-jarl, i.e. 



viii] CHRISTIANITY IN NORWAY 89 



sacrifice-earl, was a zealous heathen, but Olaf Trygg- 
vason after his succession in 995 promoted the 
cause of Christianity by every means in his power, 
and it was largely to this that he owed his ultimate 
overthrow. Then, after a brief interval, the crown 
passed to St Olaf, greatest of all Christian champions 
in Norway, and during his reign that country became 
definitely Christian, though his rough and ready 
methods of conversion were hardly likely to secure 
anything but a purely formal and outward adhesion 
to the new faith. 

Sweden was the most reluctant of the three 
northern realms to accept Christianity, and the 
country remained almost entirely heathen until the 
close of the Viking period. 

The story of the Norse settlers in Ireland and 
the Western Islands in their relation to Christianity 
was very much that of the Danes in England. Celtic 
Christianity had a firm hold in these countries, and 
from the earliest period of the settlements many 
of the Vikings adopted the Christian faith. Among 
the settlers in Iceland who came from the West were 
many Christians, and Au5r herself gave orders at her 
death that she should be buried on the sea-shore 
below the tide-mark, rather than lie in unhallowed 
ground. Most of the settlers undoubtedly remained 
heathen — in 996 a ring sacred to Thor was taken 
from a temple in Dublin and in 1000 king Brian 



90 THE VIKINGS [oh. 

destroyed a grove sacred to the same god just north 
of the city. But side by side with incidents of this 
kind must be placed others like that of the sparing 
of the churches, hospitals and almshouses when 
Armagh was sacked in 921, or the retirement 
of Anlaf Cuaran to the monastery at lona in 981. 
In Ireland as elsewhere there seems to have been a 
recrudescence of heathenism in the early years of 
the 11th century and the great fight at Clontarf 
was regarded as a struggle between pagan and 
Christian. 

Outwardly the Scandinavian world had largely 
declared its adhesion to Christianity by the close 
of the Viking period, but we must remember that 
the medieval Church was satisfied if her converts 
passed through the ceremony of baptism and observed 
her rites, though their sentiments often remained 
heathen. Except in purely formal fashion it is 
impossible to draw a definite line of demarcation 
between Christian and heathen, and the acceptance 
of Christianity is of importance not so much from 
any change of outlook which it produced in in- 
dividuals, as because it brought the peoples of the 
North into closer touch with the general life and 
culture of medieval Europe. Leaders freely accepted 
baptism — often more than once — and even confirma- 
tion as part of a diplomatic bargain, while their 
profession of Christianity made no difference to their 



VIIl] 



CONFUSED BELIEFS 



91 



Viking way of life. Even on formal lines the Church 
had to admit of compromise, as for example in the 
practice of prime-signing, whereby when Vikings 
visited Christian lands as traders, or entered the 
service of Christian kings for payment, they often 
allowed themselves to be signed with the cross, 
which secured their admission to intercourse with 
Christian communities, but left them free to hold 
the faith which pleased them best. 

Strange forms and mixtures of belief arose in the 
passage from one faith to the other. Helgi the Lean 
was a Christian, but called on Thor in the hour 
of need. The Christian saints with their wonder- 
working powers were readily adopted into the 
Norse Pantheon, and Vikings by their prayers and 
offerings secured the help of St Patrick in Ireland 
and of St Germanus in France in times of defeat 
and pestilence, while we hear of a family of settlers 
in Iceland who gave up all faith except a belief 
in the power of St Columba. On sculptured stones 
in the west may be found pictures of Ragnarok, 
of Balder and of Loki together with the sign of the 
cross. Some of the heathen myths themselves show 
Christian influence ; the Balder story with its echoes 
of the lamentations for the suffering Christ belongs 
to the last stage of Norse heathendom, while a 
heathen skald makes Christ sit by the Fountain 
of Fate as the mighty destroyer of the giants. When 



92 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



the virtue had gone out of their old beliefs many 
fell a prey to the grossest superstition, worshipping 
the rocks and groves and rivers once thought to be 
the dwelling place of the gods. Others renounced 
faith in Christian and heathen gods alike, and the 
nickname 6 godless' is by no means rare among the 
settlers in Iceland. Of such it is often said that 
they believed in themselves, or had no faith in aught 
except their own strength and power, while in the 
saga of Frtyjof we hear how the hero paid little 
heed to the sanctity of the temple of Balder and 
that the love of Ingibjorg meant more to him than 
the wrath of the gods. For a parallel to such 
audacious scepticism as that of FriJ?jof we must 
turn to southern lands and later times with Aucassin's 
' In Paradise what have I to win ? Therein I seek not 
to enter, but only to have my Nicolete, my sweet 
lady that I love so well/ For some the way of 
escape came not by superstition or by scepticism, 
but in mystic speculation, in pure worship of the 
powers of nature. Thus we hear of the Icelander 
Thorkell Mani, whom all praised for the excellence 
of his way of life, that in his last illness he was 
carried out into the sunshine, so that he might 
commend himself into the hands of the god who 
made the sun, or of the gcfti Askell who, even in the 
hour of famine, deemed it was more fitting to honour 
the creator by caring for the aged and the children, 



viii] NORSE VIEW OF LIFE 93 



than to relieve distress by putting these helpless ones 
to death. 

One other illustration of the declining force 
of heathenism must be mentioned. It is to the 
Viking age that we owe the poems of the older Edda, 
that storehouse of Norse mythology and cosmogony. 
They are almost purely heathen in sentiment, and 
yet one feels that it could only be in an age when 
belief in the old gods was passing away that the 
authors of these poems could have struck those 
notes of detachment, irony, and even of burlesque, 
which characterise so many of them. 

The condition of faith and belief in the Viking 
age was, then, chaotic, but, fortunately for purposes 
of clear statement, there was, to the Norse mind 
at least, no necessary connexion between beliefs and 
morality, between faith and conduct, and the ideas 
on which they based their philosophy and practice 
of life are fairly distinct. 

The central ideas which dominate the Norse view 
of life are an ever-present sense of the passingness 
of all things and a deep consciousness of the 
over-ruling power of Fate. All earthly things are 
transitory and the one thing which lasts is good 
fame. ' Wealth dies, kinsmen die, man himself must 
die, but the fame which a man wins rightly for 
himself never dies ; one thing I know that never 
dies, the judgment passed on every man that dies/ 



94 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



says the poet of the Hdvamdl, the great storehouse 
of the gnomic wisdom of the Norsemen. 6 All things 
are unstable and transitory, let no man therefore 
be arrogant or over-confident. The wise man will 
never praise the day before it is evening/ Prudence 
and foresight are ever necessary. All things are 
determined by a fate which is irrevocable and cannot 
be avoided. Every man must die the death that is 
appointed for him, and the man whose final day has 
not yet come may face unmoved the greatest danger. 
This sense of an inevitable fate must lead to no 
weakening of character or weariness of life. Death 
must be faced with cheerful stoicism and our 
judgment of the worth of any man must depend 
on the way in which he awaits the decree of fate. 
Place no great trust in others whether friend or foe, 
least of all place trust in women. 'Wommennes 
conseils been ful ofte colde,' says Chaucer in the 
Nun's Priest's Tale, using an old Scandinavian 
proverb. ' Be friendly to your friends and a foeman 
to your foes. Practice hospitality and hate lying 
and untruthfulness.' With their enemies the Vikings 
had an evil reputation for cunning and deceit, but 
when we study the incidents on which this charge 
was based — as for example the story of the capture 
of Luna (v. supra, p. 47) or the oft-repeated trick 
of feigning flight, only to lure the enemy away from 
safe ground— one must confess that they show an 



viii] CHARACTER OF ODIN 



95 



enemy outwitted rather than deceived. This aspect 
of Viking character perhaps finds its best illustration 
in the figure of Odin. His common epithets are 
'the wise/ 'the prudent/ 'the sagacious'; he is a 
god of witchcraft and knows all the secret powers 
of nature and stands in contrast to the simple-minded 
Thor, endowed with mighty strength, but less polished 
and refined. The development of the worship of 
Odin in Norway belongs specially to the later 
Iron Age, and it is worthy of note that his worship 
seems to have prevailed chiefly in military circles, 
among princes and their retainers. 

The Vikings were guilty of two besetting sins — 
immoderate love of wine and of women. Of their 
relations to women enough has been said already. 
Their drunken revelry is best illustrated by the story 
of the orgie which led up to the death of St Alphege 
in London in 1012, when, after drinking their fill 
of the wine they had brought from abroad, they 
pelted the bishop with bones from the feast, and 
finally pierced his skull with the spike on the back 
of an axe. Of sin in the Christian sense the Vikings 
had no conception. An Irish chronicler tells us 
indeed that the Danes have a certain piety in that 
they can refrain from flesh and from women for a 
time, but a truer description is probably that given 
by Adam of Bremen when he says that the Danes 
can weep neither for their sins nor for their dead. 



96 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



The chief occupations of the Vikings were trade 
and war, but we must beware of drawing a too rigid 
distinction between adventurers and peaceful stay-at- 
homes. The Vikings when they settled in England 
and elsewhere showed that their previous roving life 
did not hinder them in the least from settling down 
as peaceful traders, farmers, or peasant-labourers, 
while the figure of Ohthere or Ottarr, to give him his 
Norse name, who entered the service of king Alfred, 
may serve to remind us that many a landed gentleman 
was not above carrying on a good trade with the 
Finns or undertaking voyages of exploration in the 
White Sea. 

Trading in those days was a matter of great 
difficulty and many risks. The line of division 
between merchant and Viking was a very thin one, 
and more than once we read how, when merchants 
went on a trading expedition, they arranged a truce 
until their business was concluded and then treated 
each other as enemies. Trade in Scandinavia was 
carried on either in fixed centres or in periodical 
markets held in convenient places. The chief trading 
centres were the twin towns of Slesvik-Hedeby in 
Denmark, Skiringssalr in S.W. Norway, and Bjorko, 
Sigtuna and the island of Gothland in Sweden, while 
an important market ^vas held periodically at Bohusl'an 
on the Gotaelv, at a place were the boundaries of 
the three northern kingdoms met. A characteristic 



VIIl] 



TRADE 



97 



incident which happened at this market illustrates 
the international character of the trade done there. 
On a certain occasion a wealthy merchant named 
Gille (the name is Celtic), surnamed the Russian 
because of his many journeys to that country, set 
up his booth in the market and received a visit from 
the Icelander Hoskuldr who was anxious to buy 
a female slave. Gille drew back a curtain dividing 
off the inner part of the tent and showed Hoskuldr 
twelve female slaves. Hoskuldr bought one and 
she proved to be an Irish king's daughter who had 
been made captive by Viking raiders. 

The chief exports were furs, horses, wool, and fish 
while the imports consisted chiefly in articles of 
luxury, whether for clothing or ornament. There 
was an extensive trade with the Orient in all such 
luxuries and the Vikings seem eagerly to have 
accumulated wealth of this kind. When Limerick 
was re-captured by the Irish in 968, they carried 
off from the Vikings 6 their jewels and their best 
property, and their saddles beautiful and foreign 
(probably of Spanish workmanship), their gold and 
their silver : their beautifully woven cloth of all 
colours and all kinds : their satins and silken cloths, 
pleasing and variegated, both scarlet and green, and 
all sorts of cloth in like manner.' They captured 
too 6 their soft, youthful, bright, matchless girls : 
their blooming silk-clad young women : and their 

M. 7 



98 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



active, large, and well formed boys/ Such captives 
whether made by Irish from Norsemen or Norsemen 
from Irish would certainly be sold as slaves, for one 
of the chief branches of trade in those days was the 
sale as slaves of those made prisoner in war. 

The expansion of Scandinavian trade took place 
side by side with, rather than as a result of, Viking 
activity in war. There is evidence of the presence 
of traders in the Low Country early in the 9th century, 
and already in the days of St Anskar we hear of a 
Swedish widow of Bjorko who left money for her 
daughter to distribute among the poor of Duurstede. 
J6msborg was established to protect and increase 
Scandinavian trade at Julin, and there were other 
similar trading centres on the southern and eastern 
shores of the Baltic. 

The Viking might busy himself either with war 
or trade, but whatever his occupation, living as he 
did in insular or peninsular lands, good ships and 
good seamanship were essential to his livelihood. 
Seamen now often abandoned that timid hugging 
of the coast, sailing only by day time and in fair 
weather, which characterised the old Phoenician 
traders, and boldly sailed across the uncharted main 
with no help save that of the sun and stars by which 
to steer their course. It was this boldness of spirit 
alone which enabled them to reach the lonely Faroes, 
the distant Shetlands and Orkneys, and the yet more 



VIIl] 



SHIPS 



99 



remote Iceland. Irish monks and anchorites had 
shown similar fearlessness, but their bravery was 
often that of the fanatic and the mystic rather than 
the enterprise of the seaman. Boldness of seaman- 
ship led to boldness in exploration. From Iceland 
the Vikings sailed to Greenland, and by the year 
1000 had discovered Vinland, the N.B. part of 
North America. Ottarr rounded the North Cape 
and sailed the White Sea in the 9th century, while 
Harold Hardrada in the 11th century made a voyage 
of Polar exploration. 

Of their ships we know a good deal both from the 
sagas and from the remains of actual ships preserved 
to us. The custom of ship-burial, i.e. burial in a ship 
over which a grave chamber, covered with a how or 
mound, was erected, was common in the Viking age, 
and several such ships have been discovered. The 
two most famous are those of Gokstad and Oseberg, 
both found on the shores of Christiania Fjord. 
The Gokstad vessel is of oak, clinker-built, with seats 
for sixteen pairs of rowers, and is 28 ft. long and 16 ft. 
broad amidships. It dates from about 900, and in 
form and workmanship is not surpassed by modern 
vessels of a similar kind. There is a mast for a 
single sail, and the rudder, as always in those days, 
is on the starboard side. The gunwale was decorated 
with a series of shields painted alternately black 
and gold. The appearance of the vessel when fully 

7—2 



100 THE VIKINGS [oh. 



equipped can perhaps best be judged from the 
pictures of Viking ships to be seen in the Bayeux 
tapestry. There we may note the parti-coloured sail 
with its variegated stripes, and the rich carving 
of stem and stern. These magnificent sails were a 
source of much pride to their possessors, and the 
story is told of Sigurd Jerusalem-farer that on his 
way home from Jerusalem to Constantinople he lay 
for half-a-month off Cape Malea, waiting for a side 
wind, so that his sails might be set lengthwise along 
the ship and so be better seen by those standing on 
shore as he sailed up to Constantinople. The stem 
often ended in a dragon's head done over with gold, 
whilst the stern was frequently shaped like a dragon's 
tail, so that the vessel itself was often called a dragon. 

The Oseberg ship is of a different type. The 
gunwale is lower and the whole vessel is flatter and 
broader. It is used as the grave-chamber of a woman, 
and the whole appearance of the vessel, including its 
richly carved stem, indicates that it was used in calm 
waters for peaceful purposes. 

The story of the escape of H&rek of Thjotta 
through Copenhagen Sound after the battle of 
Helgeaa in 1018 illustrates the difference between 
a trading-ship and a ship of war. H&rek struck sail 
and mast, took down the vane, stretched a grey 
tent-cloth over the ship's sides, and left only a few 
rowers fore and aft. The rest of the crew were 

ff 



PLATE I 




VIIl] 



WEAPONS 



101 



bidden lie flat so that they might not be seen, with 
the result that the Danes mistook Harek's war-galley 
for a trading-vessel laden with herrings or salt and 
let it pass unchallenged. 

In the last years of the Viking period ships 
increased greatly both in size and number. Olaf 
Tryggvason's vessel, the Long Serpent, in which he 
fought his last fight at Svoldr, had thirty benches of 
oars, while Cnut the Great had one with sixty pairs 
of oars. This same king went with a fleet of some 
fourteen hundred vessels to the conquest of Norway. 

In battle the weapons of defence were helmet, 
corselet and shield. The shields were of wood with 
a heavy iron boss in the centre. The corselets were 
made of iron rings, leather, or thick cloth. The 
weapons of offence were mainly sword, spear and 
battle-axe. The sword was of the two-edged type 
and usually had a shallow depression along the 
middle of the blade, known as the blood-channel. 
Above, the blade terminated in a narrow tang, 
bounded at either end by the hilts. Round the tang 
and between the hilts was the handle of wood, horn, 
or some similar material, often covered with leather, 
or occasionally with metal. Above the upper hilt 
was a knob, which gave the sword the necessary 
balance for a good steady blow. Generally the knob 
and the hilts Avere inlaid with silver, bronze, or 
copper- work. The battle-axe, the most characteristic 



102 



THE VIKINGS 



[ch. 



of Viking weapons, was of the heavy broad-bladed 
type. 

Next to warfare and trade, the chief occupa- 
tion of the Viking was farming, while his chief 
amusement was the chase. At home the Viking leader 
lived the life of an active country gentleman. His 
favourite sport was hawking, and one of the legendary 
lives of St Edmund tells how Ragnarr LoSbrok himself 
was driven by stress of storm to land on the 
East Anglian coast, receiving a hospitable welcome 
from the king, but ultimately meeting death at the 
hands of the king's huntsman who was jealous of his 
prowess as a fowler. 

Of the social organisation of the Vikings it is 
impossible to form a very definite or precise picture. 
We have in the laws of the J6msborg settlement 
(v. supra, p. 71) the rule of life of a warrior-com- 
munity, but it would be a mistake to imagine that 
these laws prevailed in all settlements alike. The 
general structure of their society was aristocratic 
rather than democratic, but within the aristocracy, 
which was primarily a military one, the principle 
of equality prevailed. When asked who was their 
lord, Rollo's men answered ' We have no lord, we are 
all equal. 5 But while they admitted no lord, the 
Vikings were essentially practical ; they realised the 
importance of organised leadership, and we have a 
succession of able leaders mentioned in the annals 



viii] KINGS, JARLS AND LAWMEN 103 



of the time, to some of whom the title king was 
given. These kings however are too numerous, and 
too many of them are mentioned together, for it to 
be possible to give the term king in this connexion 
anything like its usual connotation. It would seem 
rather to have been used for any prince of the royal 
house, and it was only when the Vikings had formed 
fixed settlements and come definitely under Western 
influence that we hear of kings in the ordinary 
territorial sense — kings of Northumbria, Dublin, Man 
and the Isles, or East Anglia. We hear also of jarls 
or earls, either as Viking leaders or as definite 
territorial rulers, as for example the Orkney-earls 
and more than one earl who is mentioned as ruling 
in Dublin, but these earls usually held their lands 
under the authority of a king. By the side of kings 
and earls mention is made both in the Danelagh 
and also in the Western Islands of lawmen. It is 
difficult exactly to define their position and function. 
Originally these men were simply experts in the law 
who expounded it in the popular thing or assembly, 
and were the spokesmen of the people as against 
the king and the court, but sometimes they assumed 
judicial functions, acting for example in Sweden as 
assessors to the king, who was supreme judge. 

In their home life we find the same strange 
mixture of civilisation and barbarism which marks 
them elsewhere. Their houses were built of timber, 



104 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



covered with clay. There was no proper hearth and 
the smoke from the fire made its way out as best 
it could through the turf-covered roof. The chief 
furniture of the room consisted in beds, benches, 
long tables and chests, and in the houses of the rich 
these would at the close of our period often be 
carved with stories from the old heroic or mythologic 
legends, while the walls might be covered with 
tapestry. Prominent in the chieftain's hall stood the 
carved pillars which supported his high-seat and 
were considered sacred. When some of the settlers 
first sailed to Iceland they threw overboard their 
high-seat pillars which they had brought with them, 
and chose as the site of their new abode the place 
where these pillars were cast ashore. 

In clothing and adornment there can be no 
question that our Viking forefathers had attained 
a high standard of luxury. Any visitor to the great 
national museums at Copenhagen, Stockholm or 
Christiania must be impressed by the wealth of 
personal ornaments displayed before him : magnificent 
brooches of silver and bronze, arm-rings and neck- 
rings of gold and silver, large beads of silver, glass, 
rock-crystal, amber and cornelian. At one time it 
was commonly assumed that these ornaments, often 
displaying the highest artistic skill, were simply 
plunder taken by the Vikings from nations more 
cultured and artistic than themselves, but patient 



PLATE II 




Ornaments of the Viking period 



VIIl] 



ORNAMENTS 



105 



investigation has shown that the majority of them 
were wrought in Scandinavia itself. 

The most characteristic of Viking ornaments is 
undoubtedly the brooch. It was usually oval in 
shape and the concave surface was covered with a 
framework of knobs and connecting bands, which 
divided it into a series of 6 fields ' (to use a heraldic 
term), which could themselves be decorated with 
the characteristic ornamentation of the period. The 
commonest form of oval brooch was that with nine 
knobs on a single plate, but in the later examples 
the plate is often doubled. The brooches themselves 
were of bronze, the knobs usually of silver with silver 
wire along the edge of the brooch. These knobs 
have now often disappeared and the bronze has 
become dull with verdigris, so that it is difficult 
to form an idea of their original magnificence. The 
oval brooches were used to fasten the outer mantle 
and were usually worn in pairs, either on the breast 
or on the shoulders, and examples of them have 
been found from Russia in the East to Ireland on 
the West. Other types of brooch are also found — 
straight-armed, trilobed and round. Such brooches 
were often worn in the middle of the bosom a little 
below the oval ones. Other ornaments beside 
brooches are common — arm-rings, neck-rings, pen- 
dants. One of the most interesting of the pendants 
is a ring with a series of small silver Thor's hammers 



106 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



which was probably used as a charm against ill-luck. 
All these ornaments alike are in silver rather than 
gold, and it has been said that if the post-Roman 
period of Scandinavian archaeology be called the age 
of Gold, the Viking period should be named the age 
of Silver. 

The style of ornamentation used in these articles 
of personal adornment as well as in objects of more 
general use, such as horse-trappings, is that commonly 
known to German archaeologists as tier-ornamentik, 
i.e. animal or zoomorphic ornamentation. This last 
translation may sound pedantic but it is the most 
accurate description of the style, for we have no 
attempt to represent the full form of any animal that 
ever had actual existence ; rather we find the various 
limbs of animals — heads, legs, tails — woven into one 
another in fantastic design in order to cover a 
certain surface-area which requires decoration. 6 The 
animals are ornaments and treated as such. They 
are stretched and curved, lengthened and shortened, 
refashioned, and remodelled just as the space which 
they must fill requires/ This style was once called 
the ' dragon-style/ but the term is misleading as there 
is no example belonging to the Viking period proper 
of any attempt to represent a dragon, i.e. some 
fantastic animal with wings. Such creatures belong 
to a later period. 

The zoomorphic style did not have its origin 



viii] FOREIGN ART-INFLUENCES 107 



during the Viking period. It is based on that 
of a preceding period in the culture of the North 
German peoples, but it received certain characteristic 
developments at this time, more especially under the 
influence of Irish and Frankish art. Irish art had 
begun to influence that of Scandinavia even before 
the Viking period began, and the development 
of intercourse between North and West greatly 
strengthened that influence. To Frankish influence 
were due not only certain developments of tier- 
ornamentik but also the use of figures from the 
plant-world for decorative purposes. One of the 
finest brooches preserved to us from this period is 
of Frankish workmanship — a magnificent trilobed 
brooch of gold with acanthus-leaf ornamentation. 
This leaf-work was often imitated by Scandinavian 
craftsmen but the imitation is usually rude and 
unconvincing. Traces are also to be found of Oriental 
and more especially of Arabic influence in certain 
forms of silver-ornamentation, but finds of articles 
of actual Eastern manufacture are more common 
than finds of articles of Scandinavian origin showing 
Eastern influences in their workmanship. 

Buried treasure from the Viking period is very 
common. It was a popular belief, sanctioned by the 
express statement of Odin, that a man would enjoy 
in Valhalla whatsoever he had himself buried in 
the earth. Another common motive in the burial of 



108 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



treasure was doubtless the desire to find a place 
of security against robbery and plunder. Treasure 
thus secreted would often be lost sight of at the 
owner's death. To the burial-customs of the Viking 
period also we owe much of our knowledge of their 
weapons, clothing, ornaments and even of their 
domestic utensils. 

The dead were as a rule cremated, at least during 
the earlier part of the Viking period. The body 
burned or unburned was either buried in a mound 
of earth, forming a 'how/ or was laid under the 
surface of the ground, and the grave marked by 
stones arranged in a circle, square, triangle or oval, 
sometimes even imitating the outlines of a ship. 
The ' hows' were often of huge size. The largest 
of the three ' King's hows ' at Old Upsala is 30 ft. 
high and 200 ft. broad. A large how was very 
necessary in the well-known ship-burial when the 
dead man (or woman) was placed in a grave-chamber 
on board his ship and the ship was drawn on land 
and buried within a how. Men and women alike 
were buried in full dress, and the men usually have 
all their weapons with them. In the latter case 
weapons tend to take the place of articles of domestic 
use such as are found in the graves of an earlier 
period, and the change points to a new conception 
of the future life. It is now a life in which warriors 
feast with Odin in Valhalla on benches that are 



viii] BURIAL-CEREMONIES 109 



covered with corselets. A careful examination of 
Norwegian graves has proved fairly definitely the 
existence of the custom of 'suttee' during the Viking 
period, and the evidence of the Arab historian 
Ibn Fadhlan seems to show that the same custom 
prevailed among the Rus. Horses, dogs, hawks and 
other animals were often buried with their masters, 
and the remains of such, burned or unburned, have 
frequently been found. 

The varying customs attending burial are happily 
illustrated in the two accounts preserved to us 
of the burial of king Harold Hyldetan, who died 
c. 750. The accounts were written down long after 
the actual event, but they probably give us a good 
picture of familiar incidents in burial ceremonies 
of the Viking period. 

One account (in a late saga) tells how, on the 
morrow of the great fight at Bravalla, king Ring 
caused search to be made for the body of his kinsman 
Harold. When the body was found, it was washed 
and placed in the chariot which Harold used in the 
fight. A large mound was raised and the chariot 
was drawn into the mound by Harold's own horse. 
The horse was now killed and Ring gave his own 
saddle to Harold, telling him that he might ride or 
drive to Valhalla just as it pleased him best. A 
great memorial feast was held, and Ring bade his 
warriors and nobles throw into the mound large 



110 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



rings of gold and silver and good weapons before 
it was finally closed. 

The other account (in Saxo) tells how Ring 
harnessed his own horse to Harold's chariot and 
bade him drive quickly to Valhalla as the best in 
battle, and when he came to Odin to prepare goodly 
quarters for friend and foe alike. The pyre was then 
kindled and by Ring's command the Danes placed 
Harold's ship upon it. When the fire destroyed 
the body, the king commanded his followers to walk 
round the pyre and chant a lament, making rich 
offerings of weapons, gold and treasure, so that the 
fire might mount the higher in honour of the great 
king. So the body was burned, the ashes were 
collected, laid in an urn and sent to Leire, there to 
be buried with the horse and the weapons in royal 
fashion. 

There are many curious coincidences of detail 
between these accounts and that given by Ibn 
Fadhlan of the burial of a RUs warrior, and every 
detail of them has at one time or another been 
confirmed by archaeological evidence. 

The dead were commemorated by the how itself, 
but bautasteinar, i.e. memorial stones, were also 
erected, either on the how or, more commonly, 
elsewhere. In course of time these monuments came 
to be inscribed with runes. Usually the inscription 
is of the most formal type, giving the name of the 



PLATE III 




viii] RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS 111 



dead person, the name of the man who raised the 
memorial, and sometimes also that of the man who 
carved the runes. Occasionally there is some more 
human touch as in the wording of the Dyrna runes 
(v. supra, p. 85), and in the latter part of the Viking 
period we often find pictures and even scenes 
inscribed on the stones. This is true of the Dyrna 
stone (v. supra, p. 86): the Jellinge stone has a 
figure of Christ on it, while there is a famous rock- 
inscription in Sweden representing scenes from the 
Sigurd-story (Regin's smithy, hammer, tongs and 
bellows, Sigurd piercing Fafnir with his sword, the 
birds whose speech Sigurd understood) encircled by 
a serpent (Fafnir) bearing a long runic inscription. 
The runic alphabet itself was the invention of an 
earlier age. It is based chiefly on the old Roman 
alphabet with such modifications of form and symbol 
as were necessitated by the different sounds in the 
Teutonic tongues and by the use of such unyielding 
materials as wood and stone. Straight lines were 
preferred to curved ones and sloping to horizontal. 
During the Viking period it was simplified, and.runic 
inscriptions are found from the valley of the Dnieper 
on the east to Man in the west, and from Iceland on 
the north to the Piraeus in the south. 



112 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



CHAPTER IX 

SCANDINAVIAN INFLUENCE IN THE ORKNEYS, 
SHETLANDS, THE WESTERN ISLANDS 
AND MAN 

Of all the countries visited by the Vikings it is 
undoubtedly the British Isles which bear most 
definitely the marks of their presence. The history 
and civilisation of Ireland, the Orkneys and Shetlands, 
the Western Islands and Man, Scotland and England, 
were profoundly affected by the Viking movement, 
and its influence is none the less interesting because 
it varies greatly from place to place, in both character 
and intensity. These variations are doubtless due in 
part to differences of political and social organisation 
as between Norsemen and Danes, or between men 
coming from scattered districts of the as yet loosely 
co-ordinated kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, but 
their chief cause lies in the wide divergences in the 
social and political conditions of the lands in which 
they settled. 

The Orkneys and the Shetlands were settled by 
the Norsemen earlier than any other part of the 
British Isles and they formed part of the Norse 
kingdom till 1468. It is not surprising therefore that 
the great Norse historian Munch describes them as 



ix] THE ORKNEYS AND SHETLANDS 113 



ligesaa norslct som Norge selv, i as Norse as Norway 
itself/ The old Norse speech was still spoken there 
by a few people until the end of the 18th century, 
and we have a version of the ballad of King Orfeo 
taken down from recital at the close of that century 
with the Norse refrain still preserved 6 Scowan ilrla 
grtin — WTiar giorten han griin oarlac,' i.e. probably 
Shoven arle gron — Hvor hjorten han gar arlig = 
6 Early green's the wood — where the hart goes 
yearly/ Place-nomenclature is almost entirely Norse 
and the modern dialects are full of Norse words. 
Several runic inscriptions have been found, the most 
famous being that at Maeshowe in Hrossey, made by 
Norse crusaders when they wintered there in 1152-3 
and amused themselves by breaking open the how, 
probably to look for treasure, and scoring their runes 
on the walls of the grave-chamber. In the system of 
landholding the ' udallers ' are an interesting survival 
of the old Norse freeholders. 6 The Udaller held his 
land without condition or limitation in any feudal 
sense/ says Mr Gilbert Goudie, i.e. he held his udal 
on precisely the same free terms that the native 
Norseman did his 6%al. From the Shetlands and 
the Orkneys the Norsemen crossed to the Scottish 
mainland. Sutherland (i.e. the land south of the 
Orkneys), Caithness, Ross and Cromarty are full of 
Norse place-names, and Norse influence may be traced 
even further south. 



M. 



8 



114 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



The Hebrides were also largely influenced by the 
Norsemen. Together with Man they formed a 
Norse kingdom down to the middle of the 13th 
century. Many of the islands themselves and their 
chief physical features bear Norse names, many 
personal names (e.g. MacAulay, son of Aulay or Olaf) 
are of Norse origin, and there are many Norse words 
in the Gaelic both of the islands and the mainland. 
These words have undergone extensive changes and 
much corruption in a language very different in form 
and sounds from that of their original source, and 
their recognition is a difficult problem. There is at 
present a danger of exaggerating this Norse element, 
the existence of which was long overlooked. 
Similarly, affinities have been traced between 
Scandinavian and Gaelic popular tales and folk-lore, 
but the evidence is too vague and uncertain to be of 
much value. 

It is however in Man that we get the most 
interesting traces of the presence of the Norsemen. 
Here as elsewhere we have place-names and personal 
names bearing witness to their presence, but we have 
much else besides. Some 26 rune-inscribed crosses 
have been preserved to us. The crosses are Celtic in 
form and to a large extent in ornament also, but 
we find distinct traces of the Scandinavian animal- 
ornamentation. The inscriptions are short and for the 
most part give only the name of the memorial-raiser 



ix] SCULPTURED STONES 115 



and the memorised. One bears the rune-writer's own 
proud boast ' Gaut made this and all in Man/ More 
interesting than the runes are the sculptured figures. 
On four of the crosses we have representations of 
incidents from the Sigurd story — Sigurd slaying 
Fafnir, Sigurd roasting Fafnir's heart and cooling his 
fingers in his mouth after trying too soon if the heart 
was done, Loki slaying the Otter. We also have 
pictures of Thor's adventure with the serpent of 
MiSgarSr and of Odin's last fight with Fenrir's 
Wolf. These sculptured stones are probably among 
the latest of those found in Man and have their 
chief parallel in stones found in Sweden (v. supra, 
p. 111). Possibly it was to settlers from Man also 
that we owe the famous Gosforth cross in Cumberland 
with its picture of Thor's fishing for the serpent. 

In addition to all this we have the Manx legal 
system as a standing witness to Norse influence. The 
chief executive and legislative authority in the island 
(after the Governor) is the Tynwald Court. That 
court takes its name from the Old Norse \>ing-vdllr\ 
the plain where the )>ing 2 or popular assembly meets, 
and the House of Keys, which is the oldest division 

1 This word survives in another form in more than one Thing- 
wall among place-names. 

2 The word is familiar to us in the form -ting in hus-ting, house 
assembly (originally hus-)>ing) } a council held by a king or earl 
and attended by his immediate followers, in contrast to the ordinary 
)>ing or general assembly of the people. 

8—2 



116 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



of the court, consisted originally of 24 members, 
a number perhaps due to Scandinavian influence, 
being a combination of two groups of 12 lawmen 
(v. supra, p. 103). These men who have the 'keys of 
the law' in their bosom closely resemble the 'lawmen' 
or speakers of the Icelandic assembly. All laws to 
be valid must be promulgated from the Tynwald Hill 
which corresponds to the logberg or law-hill of the 
Icelandic alihing. When the court is held the 
coroner 'fences' it against all disturbance or disorder, 
just as in the old Norwegian Gulathing we hear 
of v6-b'6nd or sanctuary-ropes drawn around the 
assembly. 

It was possibly from Man that a good number of 
the Norse settlers in Cumberland, Westmorland and 
North Lancashire came (v. infra, pp. 126-7), and 
others may have settled in Galloway. 



CHAPTER X 

SCANDINAVIAN INFLUENCE IN IRELAND 

At the time of the Viking invasion of Ireland 
the various provincial kingdoms were held in loose 
confederation under the authority of the ardri or 
high king, but these kingdoms stood in constantly 



x] CONDITION OF IRELAND 117 



shifting relations of friendship and hostility towards 
one another, and were themselves often split into 
factions under rival chieftains. There was no 
national army like the English fyrd. Rather it 
consisted of a number of tribes, each commanded by 
its own chief, and though the chief owed allegiance 
to the king, the bond was a frail one. The tribe was 
further divided into septs and the army was utterly 
lacking in any cohesive principle. It is no wonder 
that for many years the Irish showed themselves 
quite unable to cope with the attacks of forces so 
well organised as those of the Norse and Danish 
Vikings. 

In vivid contrast to the chaos in political and 
military organisation stand the missionary enthusiasm 
of the Irish church and the high level of education 
and culture which prevailed among her clergy and 
literati. In the Orkneys and the Shetlands such 
names as Papa Westray or Papa Stronsay bear witness 
to the presence of Irish priests or papae as the 
Norsemen called them. Irish anchorites had at one 
time settled in the Faroes (v. supra, p. 6), and 
when the Norsemen first settled in Iceland (c. 870) 
they found Irish monks already there. The monastic 
schools of Ireland were centres of learning and 
religious instruction for the whole of Western Europe, 
while Irish missionaries had founded monasteries in 
Italy, Switzerland, Germany and France. 



118 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



Unfortunately religion and culture seem to have 
been almost entirely without influence on the body 
politic, and as the Vikings had at least in the early 
days no respect for the religion or the learning of 
the Irish nation there was nothing to prevent them 
from devastating Irish monasteries and carrying off 
the stores of treasured wealth which they contained. 
No plunder was more easily won, and it was only 
when they themselves had fallen under Christian 
influences and had come to appreciate Irish literary 
and artistic skill that they showed themselves 
more kindly disposed towards these homes of 
learning. 

One feature must at once strike the observer who 
compares the Viking settlements in Ireland with 
those in England, viz. that Viking influence in 
Ireland is definitely concentrated in the great coast 
towns — Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork and 
Limerick — and the districts immediately around 
them. Irish place-nomenclature bears very definite 
witness to this fact. Ford- in Strangford and 
Carlingford Loughs, Waterford and Wexford is O.N. 
Jygrftr, a fjord, -low in Arklow and Wicklow is O.N. 
16, 1 low-lying, flat-grassland, lying by the water's 
edge. ' The O.N. ey, an island, is found in Lambey, 
Dalkey, Dursey Head, Ireland's Eye (for Ireland's Ey), 
Howth is O.N. hqfu^, 6 a head,' Carnsore and Greenore 
Point contain O.N. eprr, 6 a sandy point pushing out 



x] IRISH PLACE-NAMES 119 



into the sea/ Smerwick contains the familiar O.N. 
vik a bay or creek, while the Copeland Islands off 
Belfast lough are the O.N. kaupmannaeyjar, 'the 
merchants' islands.' All these are found on or off 
the coast, while the number of Scandinavian names 
found inland is extremely limited. The most interest- 
ing perhaps is Leixlip on the Liffey, a name derived 
from O.N. laxahlaup, 'salmon-leap.' Donegal, Fin- 
gall and Gaultiere are Celtic names, but they mark 
the presence of the northern Gall or foreigners, 
while the -ster in Ulster, Leinster and Munster is 
O.N. -staSir (pi. of -staftr, place, abode) suffixed to 
the old Gaelic names of these provinces. 

There was free intermarriage between Norse and 
Irish (v. supra, p. 56), but the strength of the clan- 
system kept the races distinct and there was no such 
infiltration of the whole population as took place in 
the English Danelagh. This system prevented any 
such settlement of Norsemen upon their own farms 
as took place in England, and the invaders lived 
almost entirely in the coast towns and the districts 
in their immediate neighbourhood, busying themselves 
with trade and shipping. 

Though the settlements were limited in their 
extent, we must not underrate their influence on 
Irish history generally. They gave the impetus there, 
as elsewhere, to the growth of town life, and from 
the period of Viking rule dates the origin of the 



120 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



chief Irish towns. To them also was due the great 
expansion, if not the birth, of Irish trade. Mention 
has been made of the wealth of Limerick (v. supra, 
p. 97), drawn chiefly from trade with France and 
Spain, and the other towns were not behind 
Limerick. The naval power of Dublin stretched from 
Waterford to Dundalk, the Irish channel swarmed 
with Viking fleets, and many of the shipping terms in 
use in Gaelic are loan-words from the Norse. 

It is probably to the trading activities of Vikings 
from the chiefs ports of Ireland that we owe the 
sprinkling of names of Norse origin which we find 
along the Welsh coast from the Dee to the Severn — 
Great Orm's Head, Anglesey, Ramsey I, Skokholm 
Island, Flat Holme and Steep Holme, and to them 
may be due the establishment of Swansea, earlier 
Sweinesea, Haverfordwest and possibly Bideford, as 
Norse colonies in the Bristol channel. We know in 
later times of several Norsemen who were living in 
Cardiff, Bristol, Swansea and Haverfordwest 

Norse influence in Ireland probably reached its 
climax in the 10th century. The battle of Clontarf 
offered a serious check and though there was still a 
succession of Norse kings and earls in Dublin they 
had to acknowledge the authority of the ardri. The 
line of Sigtryggr of the Silken Beard came to an end 
by the middle of the 11th century, and the rulership 
of Dublin fell into the hands of various Norse families 



x] INFLUENCE IN IRELAND 121 



from other Irish settlements and from Man and the 
Isles. From 1078-94 it was under the rule of the 
great conqueror Godred Crovan from Man, and its 
connexion with that kingdom was only severed finally 
when Magnus Barefoot came on his great Western 
expedition in 1103, and brought Man into direct 
allegiance to the kings of Norway. Celtic influence 
must have been strong in the Norse families them- 
selves. Several of the kings bear Gaelic names, and 
it is probably from this period that such familiar 
names as MacLamont or MacCalmont, Maclver, and 
MacQuistan date, where the Gaelic patronymic prefix 
has been added to the Norse names LagmaSr, Ivarr 
and Eysteinn. While Norse power in Dublin was on 
the decline as a political force it is curious to note 
that the vigorous town-life and the active commerce 
instituted by the Norse settlers made that city of 
ever-increasing importance as a centre of Irish life 
and Irish interests generally, and there can be no 
question that it was the Norsemen who really made 
Dublin the capital city of Ireland. 

The Norse element remained absolutely distinct, 
not only in Dublin but also in the other cities in 
which they had settled, right down to the time of 
the English invasion in the 12th century. Frequent 
mention is made of them in the records of the great 
towns, and they often both claimed and received 
privileges quite different from those accorded to the 



122 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



native Irish or to the English settlers. They were 
known to the latter as 6 Ostmen ' or ' Easterlings,' a 
term which in this connexion seems to have ousted 
the earlier Norvagienses or les Norreys, les Nor- 
wicheis. The term 'Ostman' doubtless represents 
O.N. Austmaftr, a man dwelling to the east. Exactly 
how or where it first came to be applied to Norsemen 
it is difficult to say. The word has left its mark in 
Oxmanstown, earlier Ostmanstown, the district of the 
city of Dublin assigned to the Ostmen by the English 
invaders. 

Learning and religion in Ireland suffered griev- 
ously from Norse attack but not so sorely as in 
England. There was never a time when so dark a 
picture could have been drawn of Irish learning as 
Alfred gives of the state of English learning when he 
translated the Pastoral Care, and when once the 
Vikings began to form settlements they were them- 
selves strongly affected by the wealth of literary and 
artistic skill with which they found themselves brought 
into contact. The question of Irish influence on 
Norse mythology and literature is a much vexed one. 
At present we are suffering from a reaction against 
exaggerated claims made on its behalf some thirty 
years ago, but while refusing to accept the view that 
Norse legends, divine and heroic alike, are based on 
a wholesale refashioning and recreating of stories 
from Celtic saga-lore, it would be idle to deny that 



XI] 



PLACE-NAMES 



123 



the contact between the two nations must have been 
fertile of result and that Norse literature in form, 
style and subject-matter alike, bears many marks of 
Gaelic influence. 

CHAPTER XI 

SCANDINAVIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLAND 

Of the districts occupied by Scandinavian settlers 
in England the ones which show their presence most 
strongly are Cumberland, Westmorland, North Lan- 
cashire and Yorkshire in the old kingdom of North- 
umbria and the district of the Five Boroughs in the 
midlands. East Anglia was not so deeply affected 
by the Danish occupation. 

Before dealing with one of the chief sources of 
our knowledge of the presence of Norse and Danish 
settlers in various parts of England, viz. the evidence 
derived from place-nomenclature, a few words must 
be said as to the chief Scandinavian elements which 
can be recognised in English place-names. 

Of elements other than personal names the 
commonest are as follows, several of them being 
used as independent words to this day in English 
dialects which have been affected by Scandinavian 
influence : — 

-beck. O.N. bekkr, brook, small stream of 
water. 



124 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



-biggin(g). O.N. bygging, building. 

-by. O.N. b$r, Dan. Swed. by, town or village. 
This word indicates a Danish rather than a Norse 
settlement. 

-car(r), -ker. O.N. kjarr, Jcjorr, brushwood, 
especially on swampy ground. 

-dale. O.N. dalr, valley. Etymologically this 
word might be of native English origin but its 
distribution points to Norse influence. 

-fell. O.N. fjatt, mountain. 

-force. O.N. fors, waterfall. 

-forth. O.N. fjqrSr, fjord. English -ford and 
Scandinavian -forth often interchange in the old 
documents. 

-garth. O.N. garftr, enclosure, the Scandinavian 
equivalent of English ' yard/ 

-gill. O.N. gil, deep narrow glen with a stream 
at the bottom. 

-holm. O.N. holmr, small island especially in a 
bay, creek, or river. In England its meaning was 
further developed and it often means ' low-lying level 
ground on the borders of a river or stream.' Now 
often concealed in the suffix -ham. 

-keld. O.N. Jcelda, well, spring. 

-lund, -lound. O.N. lundr, grove. Now often 
corrupted to -land in English place-names. 

-mire. O.N. myrr, moor, bog, swamp. 

-raise. O.N. hreysi, cairn. 



XI] 



PLACE-NAMES 



125 



-scale. O.N. skali, house. This word is Norse 
rather than Danish. 

-scar, -skear, -skerry. O.N. sJcer, isolated rock in 
the sea. 

-scout. O.N. shutij cave formed by jutting rocks. 

-scough, -scow. O.N. sJcdgr, wood. 

-slack. O.N. slaMi, slope on a mountain edge. 
Often used in English place-names of a hollow or 
boggy place 1 . 

-tarn. O.N. tjorn, small lake. 

-thorp(e). O.N. \orp, hamlet, village. This 
word is also found in O.E. and in some place-names 
is undoubtedly of native origin, but its general 
distribution points fairly conclusively to Norse 
influence. 

-thwaite. O.N. )>veit, parcel of land, paddock. 
-toft. O.N. topt, piece of ground, messuage, 
homestead. 

-with. O.N. viQr, a wood. 
-wath. O.N. vaft, a ford. 

Place-names with the prefix Norman- mark the 
settlement not of Normans but of Norsemen (or 
Northmen as the English called them), as in Nor- 
manton and Normanby, while the settlement of 
Danes is marked by the prefix Dena- or Den- as in 
Denaby and Denby. This latter prefix however has 
other sources as well. 

1 In Scotland it is used of a hollow pass in a ridge. 



126 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



Scandinavian personal names are very common in 
place-names but their presence can as a rule only be 
detected with any degree of certainty by reference 
to the forms found in early documents. Among the 
more easily recognised are Grimr, as in Grimsargh 
(Lanes.) and Grimsby (Lines.), Gunnarr, as in Gun- 
nerside (Yorks.), Ketitt, as in Kettlewell (Yorks.), 
KlaMr, as in Claxton (Norf.), Ormr, as in Ormskirk 
(Lanes.). Others, to be found by reference to earlier 
forms, are Frdni, as in Franesfeld (= Farnsfield, 
Notts.), Gamall, as in Gamelestune (= Gamston, 
Notts.), Gmmulfr, as in Gunnulveston (= Gonalston, 
Notts.), Kntitr, as in Cnutestone (=Knuston, 
Northants.), Leifr, as in Levesbi (=Laceby, Lines.), 
Sumarlifti, as in Sumarlidebi (=Somerby, Lines.), 
SMli, as in Sculetuna (=Scoulton, Norf.), T6l% as 
in Toleslund (=Toseland, Hunts.), Vikingr, as in 
Wichingestone (= Wigston, Leic), Ulfr, as in Ulvesbi 
(= Ulceby, Lines.). 

Examining the distribution of Scandinavian place- 
names determined by the above tests and others 
which can be applied with great accuracy, if we 
study not the modern but the old forms of the place- 
names, we find that the place-nomenclature of 
Cumberland and Westmorland is almost entirely 
either Scandinavian or Celtic. Indeed it would 
seem that the Anglian settlement had hardly affected 
these districts at all, and it was reserved for the 



xi] DISTRIBUTION OF PLACE-NAMES 127 



Scandinavian settlers to Teutonise them. The same 
is true of Furness and Lancashire, north of the 
Ribble, whose old names Stercaland and Agmun- 
dernesse are of Norse origin, but south of that river 
there is a great diminution of Norse place-names 
except along the coast and a little way inland, where 
we have several -bys and -dales. In Cheshire the 
evidence of Scandinavian settlement is confined 
almost entirely to the Wirral, but there the large 
number of -bys and place-names like Thingwall 
{v. supra, p. 115, note 1) point to a strong Viking 
colony, and the distribution of place-names in South 
Lancashire and Cheshire bears witness to active inter- 
course between the settlers in Ireland and England. 

On the other side of the Pennine chain, though 
Northumberland was several times ravaged by the 
Norsemen and was probably well populated at least 
in the fertile river-valleys, there is practically no 
evidence of their presence to be found in place- 
names. There are several Biggins, Carrs, and Holms, 
a few Tofts and Dales, but these are common dialect 
words and usually found in uncompounded forms. 
They are practically never found in names of towns 
or villages, and may well have been introduced from 
districts further south. In the extreme west and 
south-west of the county there are 6 fells ' and ' dales ■ 
but these are on the borders of Cumberland, West- 
morland and Durham. The small streams are 



128 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



6 burns' and not 1 becks/ the Wansbeck being a 
corruption of an earlier Wanespike. 

When we cross into co. Durham the tributaries of 
the Wear vary between 'burn' and 'beck/ but by 
the time we reach the Tees these have all become 
becks. Beechburn Beck, a tributary of the Wear, 
shows how a Scandinavian term could be attached to 
an English name, when its own meaning was neglected 
or forgotten. Other Scandinavian names are common, 
but as in Northumberland they belong to the dialect 
generally and are seldom found in names of towns 
or villages. Viking settlers must have been few in 
numbers and widely scattered throughout these two 
counties. One great exception must be named 
among the towns, viz. Durham itself. The city was 
named D&n-hotmr, 'the hill-island/ by the Vikings, 
and its present name is only the Norman corruption 
of that form. 

South of the Tees we find ourselves in a district 
whose place-names are to a very large extent 
Scandinavian, and Norse settlements are thickly and 
evenly distributed from the North Sea to the Pennine 
chain. 

Passing from Northumbria to the Danelagh, 
Lincolnshire is perhaps more purely Scandinavian in 
its place-names than any other English county. In 
Derbyshire Viking influence is not so strong but 
the county was probably very thinly inhabited at least 



XI] 



THE DANELAGH 



129 



in the north and west and did not offer attractive 
settling ground. Derby itself was rechristened by 
the Northmen, its earlier name being 6 NorSweorSig.' 
The rich fields and pastures of Leicestershire attracted 
a great many settlers and Nottinghamshire is also 
strongly Scandinavian. Rutland and Northampton- 
shire are strongly Danish except that there is some 
shading off towards the S.W. corner of the latter 
county. In the country bordering the Danelagh on 
the south and west, Staffordshire has a few Scandi- 
navian place-names on its Derbyshire and Leicester- 
shire borders, while Warwickshire has several on its 
Leicestershire and Northamptonshire borders. 

In East Anglia Danish settlements must have 
been numerous in the north and east especially 
towards the coast, but their presence is less strongly 
marked in the S.W. portion of the county. In 
Suffolk they are confined still more definitely to the 
coast-districts and the Danes do not seem to have 
settled in the south of the county at all. Three 
Kirbys near the Essex coast mark settlements in that 
county. Of the other border-counties Huntingdon- 
shire, Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire show only 
the slightest traces of Scandinavian influence in their 
place-nomenclature, though we know from other 
evidence that there must have been many Danish 
settlers in these counties. 

Closely allied to the evidence of place-names is 

M. 9 



130 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



that of dialect. A very large number of words 
definitely of Scandinavian origin are found in the 
dialects of N.E. and KW. England, in the N. Midlands 
and East Anglia, but they do not furnish so sensitive 
a test as do place-names for the extent of the 
Scandinavian settlements and they need not be dis- 
cussed here. 

More interesting as evidence of the deep influence 
of the Viking settlers on our language is the large 
number of Scandinavian loan-words which have 
become part of our standard speech, many of them 
being words essential to our every-day talk. To 
Scandinavian influence we owe the pronouns they, 
them and their, the adjectives same and both, the fro 
in to and fro and possibly the auxiliary are and 
the preposition till. These last are found in the 
Northumbrian dialect of Old English but their 
widespread use is probably due to Scandinavian 
influence. In addition to these we may note the 
following : 

Verbs : bait, bash, batten, call, cast, dawn, droop, 
drown, gain, gabble, ransack, scare, scour, scrape, 
shim, ship, squeal, stint, take, 

Nouns : anger, billow, boon, dush, fellow, gait, 
grime, haven, husband, hush, husting, scull, scurf, 
shill, shin, shirt, shy, window, 

Adjectives : awhward, ill, odd, rotten, scant, sly, 
ugly, weak, 



xi] INFLUENCE ON VOCABULARY 131 



and a good many words in which Scandinavian forms 
have replaced the cognate English ones, e.g. aloft, 
athwart, awe, birth, egg, get, gift, give, guest, raid, 
sister, swain, Thursday. 

These words are for the most part of the very 
stuff and substance of our language, giving vivid 
expression to clear-cut ideas, and though numeri- 
cally they are outnumbered by the loan-words from 
French, they are in themselves more essential to our 
speech than the rich vocabulary derived from that 
language. 

For the extent and character of the Viking 
settlements in England we have however a far more 
delicate and accurate index than that to be found in 
the evidence of place-names and dialects. When we 
study the pages of Domesday, the great record of 
English social organisation in the 11th century, we 
find that in the counties which came under Viking 
influence there are many details of land-division, 
tenure, assessment and social organisation generally 
wherein those counties differ from the rest of England, 
and some of these differences can still be traced. 

The 'ridings' of Yorkshire and the Lindsey division 
of Lincolnshire were originally 'thrithings' (O.N. 
\ri\jungr, a third part), the initial th being later 
absorbed by the final consonant of the preceding 
1 East/ 'West,' ' North' and 6 South' (in Lines.). 

The chief tests of Scandinavian influence, drawn 

9—2 



132 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



from Domesday and allied sources, are however as 
follows : 

(1) The use of the Danish Wapentake' as the 
chief division of the county in contrast to the English 
' hundred/ This is found in Lincolnshire, Derbyshire 
(with one exception on its southern border), Notting- 
hamshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, and one district 
of Northamptonshire, now included in Rutland. We 
have wapentakes in Yorkshire, except in certain 
districts along the sea-coast, while in Lancashire 
the term was applied to the court of the hundred or 
shire long after the Conquest. There is some evidence 
also for the belief that the use of the hundred (or 
wapentake) as an administrative unit is in itself due 
to Scandinavian influence. The proportion of names 
of hundreds (or wapentakes) which are definitely 
of Danish origin is very high and, unless we assume 
wholesale renaming, this points to their having been 
first named at a period subsequent to the Danish 
conquest. 

(2) The assessment by carucates in multiples 
and submultiples of 12 is characteristic of the Dane- 
lagh, as opposed to that by hides, arranged on a 
decimal system in the strictly English districts. This 
is found in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, 
Leicestershire and Rutland, with the exception of 
the above mentioned district. There are traces of a 
duodecimal assessment in the two N.E. hundreds of 



xi] NORTHUMBRIA AND THE DANELAGH 133 



Northamptonshire, while in Lancashire a hidal assess- 
ment has been superimposed upon an original carucal 
one. Carucal assessment is found also in Yorkshire, 
Norfolk and Suffolk. 

(3) In Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire 
and Yorkshire we have traces of the use of the Danish 
'long' hundred (= 120), e.g. the fine for breaking the 
king's peace is £8, i.e. 120 ores 1 of 16 pence. 

Using the various tests we find that the Scandi- 
navian kingdom of Northumbria was considerably 
smaller than the earlier realm of that name, North- 
umberland and Durham being but sparsely settled, 
while South Lancashire and Cheshire were occupied 
chiefly along the coast. The kingdom would seem to 
fall into two isolated halves, Cumberland and West- 
morland and North Lancashire in the north-west 
and Yorkshire in the south-east. The district of the 
Five Boroughs covered Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, 
Lincolnshire (Lincoln and Stamford), Leicestershire, 
and probably the whole of Rutland (Stamford). The 
case of Northamptonshire is difficult. The carucal 
assessment fails except in the extreme N.E. of the 
county, but Danish place-nomenclature is strongly 
evident, though it shades off somewhat towards the 
S.W. It resembles Danish East Anglia rather than 

1 The ore as a unit of weight for silver is of Scandinavian origin. 
In some districts it was of the value of 16 pence, in others of 20 pence, 
and eight ores went to the mark. 



134 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



the district of the Five Boroughs and it is possible 
that the boundary of Guthrum's East Anglian kingdom, 
which is only carried as far as Stony Stratford in 
the peace of Alfred and Guthrum, really ran along 
Watling Street for a few miles, giving two-thirds of 
that county to the East Anglian realm. 

Northumbria was governed by a succession of 
kings. The Five Boroughs formed a loose confedera- 
tion, and there can be no question that the districts 
which ' obeyed' (v. supra, p. 31) the boroughs of Derby, 
Leicester, Nottingham, Lincoln (and Stamford) and 
Northampton form the modern counties named from 
these towns. It is also to Danish influence direct or 
indirect that we owe the similar organisation of the 
counties of Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire, Bed- 
fordshire and Hertfordshire in the old East Anglian 
kingdom. Each of these counties had a jarl or earl, 
whose headquarters were at the 6 borough.' He sum- 
moned the here, whether for political or military 
purposes, and when these counties passed once more 
under English rule he fulfilled the functions of the 
older ealdorman. 

In East Anglia, apart from place-names {v. supra, 
p. 129) and carucal assessment in Norfolk and Suffolk, 
we are left with the boundaries of Guthrum's kingdom 
and with various miscellaneous evidence for estimating 
the extent of Scandinavian influence. There is a 
curious 'hundredus Dacorum' (cf. supra, p. 10) in 



xi] DANISH SOCIAL ORGANISATION 135 



Hertfordshire, while the Historia Eliensis and other 
documents tend to show the presence of a strong- 
Danish element in the population and social organisa- 
tion of the districts around Cambridge. The kingship 
of East Anglia came to an end early in the 10th 
century, and it is probable that its organisation was 
then changed to one resembling that of the Five 
Boroughs, viz. a number of districts grouped around 
central ' boroughs,' which afterwards became counties, 
except in the older divisions of Norfolk and Suffolk. 

A careful study of Domesday and other authorities 
reveals many other features of interest in our social 
system which were due to Viking influence. Certain 
types of manorial structure are specially common 
in the Danelagh. Manor and vill are by no means 
identical, indeed several manors are included under 
one vill. Very frequent is the type which consists 
in a central manor with sokeland appurtenant. In 
the Danelagh there was a large number of small 
freeholders and the free peasant class was much 
more numerous than in Anglo-Saxon England. These 
districts stand in clear contrast to the strongly 
manorialised southern counties and they were not 
feudalised to any appreciable extent before the 
Norman conquest. When that system was imposed 
we often find single knight's fees having to be taken 
over by entire communities of sokemen. The ' holds' 
of Northumbria, who rank next after the eark, 



136 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



and the 'drengs' of Cumberland, Westmorland, 
Lancashire, Northumberland and Durham, are also 
of Scandinavian origin. The 'dreng' was 'a free 
servant of the king endowed with lands' and the 
name still survives in the Yorkshire place-name 
Dringhouses. 

The legal instinct was strong in the Scandinavian 
mind and English law bears deep marks of its influence. 
The very word ' law ' itself is of Scandinavian origin 
and has replaced the English 'doom.' The chief 
judicial authority in Lincoln, Stamford, Cambridge, 
Chester and York was in the hands of twelve 
lagmen or judices. These 'lawmen' (v. supra, p. 103) 
though they had judicial authority were not chosen 
by the king or by popular election. Their position 
was hereditary. Of special interest are the ' 12 senior 
thanes' of Aethelred's laws for the Five Boroughs 
enacted at Wantage in 997. They have to come 
forward in the court of every wapentake and to 
swear that they will not accuse wrongly any innocent 
man or conceal any guilty one. The exact force of 
this enactment has been a matter of dispute — whether 
the thanes simply bore witness to the personal status 
of the accused, thus enabling the court to determine 
the ordeal through which he should be put, or whether 
we have an anticipation of the system of presentment 
by ju^y- Whatever may be the exact truth there 
can be little doubt, says Dr Vinogradoff, that 



XI] 



SUMMARY 137 



such a custom prepared the way for the indictment 
jury of the 12th century. The same author at- 
tributes to Danish influence a new conception of 
crime. It is no longer merely a breach of the peace 
or the result of a feud, to be settled by monetary 
compensation, it is a breach of that conception of 
honour which binds together military societies. The 
criminal is now branded as nithing, a man unworthy 
of comradeship with his fellow-warriors. 

Unfortunately it is only within the last few years 
that the question of Danish influence on our social, 
political and legal systems has been treated at all 
seriously and much work still remains to be done, but 
we can already see that the Danes affected English 
life far more deeply than a superficial glance might 
suggest. Doubtless the Danish invasions struck a 
heavy blow at learning and literature, a blow from 
the effects of which not even the heroic activities of 
an Alfred could save them, but there can be no 
question that in the development of town life, in the 
promotion of trade, in the improvement of organisa- 
tion and administration, in the modification of legal 
procedure the invaders conferred great benefits on 
the country as a whole. 



138 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



CHAPTER XII 

SCANDINAVIAN INFLUENCE IN THE EMPIRE 
AND ICELAND 

Considering the long and devastating campaign 
of the Vikings within the Frankish empire and more 
especially within its western portion, it is surprising 
that they only formed permanent settlements in one 
small area, leaving practically no marks of their 
presence elsewhere. Great portions of the Low 
Countries were in almost continuous occupation by 
them during the 9th century, but the opportunity 
was lost, and beyond an important share in the 
development of the trade of Duurstede, the Vikings 
hardly left a sign of their influence behind them. 

The case of Normandy is different. Here we 
have a definite district assigned to the invaders, just 
as the Danelagh was given to them in England, and 
the whole of that territory is deeply impregnated with 
their influence. Many of the Norman towns in -ville 
contain as the first element in their name a Norse 
personal name, e.g. Catteville, Cauverville, Colle- 
ville, Fouqueville, Hacqueville containing the names 
Kdte, Kdlfr, Kolr, F6lki } Hdkon, while the suffixes 
-bee, -beuf, -dale, -ey, -gard, -londe, -torp, -tot, -tuit, 



xii] INFLUENCE IN NORMANDY 139 



-vie as in Bolbec, Elbeuf, Saussedalle, Jersey, Eppe- 
gard, Mandelonde, Torgistorp, Abbetot, Bracquetuit, 
Barvic go back to O.N. bekkr, bM (booth), dalr, ey 
(island), garW, lundr, \orp, topt, \veit, vik (v. supra, 
pp. 124 — 5). The dialect of Normandy to this day 
contains a good number of Scandinavian words, 
and others have been introduced into the standard 
language. Some of these have also found their way 
into English through our Norman conquerors, e.g. 
abet, baggage, elope, equip, jolly, rubbish, seoop, 
strife just as the Bulbeek in Swaffham Bulbeck 
(Cambs.) and Bulbeck Common above Blanchland in 
Northumberland is from the great Norman barony 
of Bulbeck, so named after Bolbec in Normandy, of 
which they once formed part. Norman law and 
customs also show many traces of Scandinavian 
influence and so does Norman folk-lore. 

The Normans still looked to Denmark as their 
home-land down to the end of the 10th century, and at 
least twice during the reign of Harold Blue-tooth their 
Dukes received help from that country. The nobles 
soon ceased to speak their old northern language, but 
it is probable that it remained current on the lips of 
the people for some considerable time longer. 

The Vikings always showed themselves keenly 
sensitive to the influence of a civilisation higher or 
more developed than their own, and this is nowhere 
more apparent than in Normandy. Heathenism 



140 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



found a champion as late as 943 when, on the death 
of William Longsword, a rising of heathen Normans 
was crushed with the aid of the Frankish king, but 
for the most part the Normans soon showed them- 
selves devout sons of the Church and were destined 
in the 11th century to be numbered among the 
most ardent supporters of the Crusades. With the 
adoption of Christianity they learned to respect and 
honour those homes of learning which they had once 
devastated for their wealth of hoarded treasure, and 
the famous school at Bee, whence came Lanfranc and 
Anselm, was only one among many which they richly 
endowed and supported. 

Their religious and artistic feeling found ex- 
pression in that development of Romanesque archi- 
tecture which we know as Norman and which has 
given so many famous buildings not only to Normandy 
but to England, to Sicily and to Southern Italy 
generally. In literature the Norman-French trouveres 
did much towards popularising the romances of war 
and adventure which play so important a part in 
medieval literature, and when they settled in England 
it was largely due to Anglo-Norman poets that 1 the 
matter of Britain ' became one of the great subjects 
of romance for all time. 

In its social organisation Normandy seems speedily 
to have been feudalised. Rollo divided the land 
among a comparatively small number of large 



XIl] 



THE NORMANS 



141 



landholders and the system of land tenure was quite 
different from that in the English Danelagh with its 
large number of small freeholders. On the other 
hand it was probably due to Norse traditions of 
personal freedom that serfdom disappeared earlier in 
Normandy than in any other of the French provinces. 

Trade and commerce were fostered here as every- 
where by the Vikings. It was the Normans who 
first taught the French to become a power at sea, 
many French naval terms are of Norman origin and 
from the Norman province have come some of 
France's greatest sea-captains. 

The Vikings like the Franks before them threw off 
their old speech and submitted to the all-embracing 
power of Latin civilisation, and the result was a race 
endowed with vigorous personality, untiring activity, 
and the instinct for ruling men. The Normans may 
have become largely French but they lost none of 
their old enterprise and spirit of adventure. In the 
11th century they conquered England and founded 
great kingdoms for themselves in Sicily and South 
Italy. No Viking stock was more vigorous than that 
which resulted from the grafting of Gallo-Latin 
culture on the ruder civilisation of the Teutonic 
north. 

Their influence on France as a whole is not nearly 
as great as the influence of their kinsmen in England, 
probably because English government was centralised 



142 



THE VIKINGS 



[CH. 



(under Norman rule) much sooner than French 
government, and their influence was thus able to 
make itself felt outside the actual districts in which 
they settled. The settlement of Normandy helped 
however towards the consolidation of power in the 
hands of Charles the Bald and his successors, much 
as the settlement of the Danelagh helped in establish- 
ing the final supremacy of Wessex. 

It remains to speak of one great home of Viking 
civilisation to which more than one reference has 
been made in previous chapters, viz. Iceland. The 
story of its settlement is a very simple one. It 
commenced about 870, when many great Norwegian 
noblemen sought there for themselves and their 
followers a freer life than they could obtain under 
the growing power of Harold Fairhair. It was 
greatly strengthened by settlers both from Norway 
and from Ireland and the Western Islands when that 
power was firmly established by the battle of Hafrs- 
fjord, and by the year 930 the settlement was 
practically complete. Iceland was more purely 
Scandinavian than any other settlement made during 
the Viking age. Here we have not the case of one 
civilisation grafted on another and earlier one as in 
England, Ireland or the Frankish empire, but the 
transference of the best and finest elements in a 
nation to new and virgin soil where, for good or ill, 
they were free to develop their civilisation on almost 



xii] THE ICELANDIC COMMONWEALTH 143 



entirely independent lines. Settlers from the Western 
Islands and from Ireland may have brought Celtic 
elements, and Christianity was not without influence, 
when it was introduced from Norway at the close of 
the 10th century, but on the whole we see in Iceland 
just what Viking civilisation was capable of when 
left to itself. 

At first the settlers lived in almost complete 
isolation, political and religious, from one another, 
but they soon found that some form of organisation 
was necessary and groups of settlers began by choos- 
ing from among their number a gofti, or chieftain, 
half-priest, half-leader, who was the speaker at their 
moot and their representative in negotiation with 
neighbouring groups. Then, continued disputes and 
the lack of a common law led to the establishment 
of a central moot or al\ing, with a speaker to 
speak one single law for all. But the Norsemen 
were much better at making constitutions and 
enacting laws than they were at observing them 
when instituted, and the condition of Iceland has 
been vividly if roughly summarised as one of 'all 
law and no government/ The local \ings or the 
national aiding might enact perfect laws, but there 
was no compelling force, except public opinion, to 
make them be obeyed. Even the introduction of 
Christianity made no difference : the Icelanders 
quarrelled as bitterly over questions of ecclesiastical 



144 



THE VIKINGS 



[ch. 



as of civil law and the authorities of the medieval 
Church were scandalised by their anarchic love of 
freedom. In the words of Professor Ker ' the settlers 
made a commonwealth of their own, which was in 
contradiction to all the prejudices of the middle ages 
and of all ancient and modern political philosophy ; 
a commonwealth which was not a state, which had 
no government, no sovereignty.' 'It was anarchy 
without a police-constable.' The result was that the 
rich men grew richer, the poor became poorer, the 
smaller gentry died out and the large estates fell 
into fewer and fewer hands. The great men quarrelled 
among themselves, intrigued against one another and 
played into the hands of the Norwegian kings who 
were only waiting their opportunity. It came in the 
days of H4kon the Old. 'Land and thanes' were 
sworn into subjection to that king at the Althing in 
1262, and in 1271 the old Icelandic common law was 
superseded by a new Norse code. 

The failure of the Icelandic commonwealth is 
amply compensated for by the rich intellectual deve- 
lopment of Icelandic literature, which owed many 
of its most characteristic features to the fact that it 
was written in a land almost completely isolated 
and detached from the main currents of Western 
medieval thought and the general trend of European 
history, but in itself that failure is full of deepest 
import for a right understanding of the part played 



t 

xii] CONCLUSION 145 

by Viking civilisation in Europe. Powerful and 
highly developed as that civilisation was in many 
ways, it only reached its highest and best expression 
when brought into fruitful contact with other and 
older civilisations. There it found the corrective 
for certain inherent weaknesses, more especially for 
certain tendencies of too strongly individualistic 
character leading to political and intellectual anarchy, 
while at the ? ,same time by its own energy and vigour 
it quickened the life of the older civilisations where 
they were tending to become effete or outworn. The 
Germanic peoples had done much for the development 
of European civilisation in the time of the wanderings 
of the nations, but by the end of the 8th century 
they had lost much of their pristine vigour through 
contact with the richer and more luxurious civilisa- 
tion of the Roman world. It was reserved for the 
North Germanic peoples, or the Northmen as we can 
more fitly describe them, in the 9th and 10th centuries 
to give a yet more powerful stimulus to European 
life, if not to European thought, a stimulus which 
perhaps found its highest expression in the great 
creations of the Norman race in the world of politics, 
the world of commerce, the world of architecture 
and the world of letters. 



M. 



10 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



[The appended bibliography does not attempt to deal with 
primary authorities, with the large mass of valuable periodical 
literature which has been published within the last thirty years, 
or with books only incidentally concerned with the movement. 
It is much to be regretted that so few of the important Scandi- 
navian books on the subject have been translated into English.] 

Bjorkman, E. Scandinavian Loan-words in Middle English. 
Halle. 1906. 

Bugge, A. Vikingerne. 2 series. Christiania. 1904-6. (German 

trans, of 1st series. Leipzig. 1896.) 
Vesterlandenes Inflydelse paa Nordboernes i Vikingetiden. 

Christiania. 1905. 

Norges Historic Vol. i, Pt. n. Christiania. 1910. 

Collingwood, W. G. Scandinavian Britain. London. 1908. 
Craigie, W. A. The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia. London. 

1906. 

Dietrichson, L. and Meyer, S. Monumenta Orcadica. Chris- 
tiania. 1906. (Abridged English edition.) 

Du Chaillu, P. B. The Viking Age. 2 vols. London. 1889. 

Gustafson, G. Norges Oldtid. Christiania. 1906. 

Henderson, G. The Norse Influence on Celtic Scotland. Glasgow. 
1910. 

Keary, C. F. The Vikings in Western Christendom. London. 
1891. 

Kermode, P. M. C. Manx Crosses. London. 1 907. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



147 



Maurer, K. Die Bekehrimg des Norwegischen Stammes. 2 vols. 

Munich. 1855-9. 
Montelius, 0. Sveriges Historia. Vol. i. Stockholm. 1903. 

(German tr. Kulturgeschichte Schwedens. Leipzig. 1906.) 
Muller, S. Vor Oldtid. Copenhagen. 1897. (German tr. 

Nordische Altertumskunde. 2 vols. Strasburg. 1897-8.) 
Olrik, A. Nordisk Aaandsliv i Vikingetid. Copenhagen. 1907. 

(German tr. Nordisches Geistesleben. Heidelberg. 1908.) 
Steexstrup, J. C. H. R. jN T ormannerne. 4 vols. Copenhagen. 

1876-82. 

Danmarks Riges Historie. Vol. i. Copenhagen. 1876-82. 

Thomsen, V. The Relations between Ancient Russia and Scandi- 
navia. Oxford. 1877. 

Vogel, W. Die Normannen und das Frankische Reich. Heidel- 
berg. 1906. 

Vogt, L. J. Dublin som Norsk By. Christiania. 1906. 

The Publications of the Viking Club (Saga-Book and Year 
Book) include papers on various aspects of the movement and 
notices of the literature of the subject as well as descriptions of 
various archaeological discoveries. 



INDEX 



Aethelflsed of Mercia, 29, 32, 57 
Aethelstan, 35-6 
Alfred the Great, 25-8 
Altar-ring, 26, 89 
Althing, 116 

Anlaf Godfreyson, 35 ; Sihtricsson 
(Ouaran), 34, 36, 56, 60-1, 90 

Arabic historians, references in, 
20, 76, 109 

Auftr the deep-thoughted, 20, 66, 
68, 85, 89 

bautasteinar, 110 

Bjorko, 86, 96, 98 

Bjorn Ironside, 22, 44, 46 

Black Foreigners, 10 

Brian Borumha, 56, 62-4 

Brunanburh, 35, 61, 64 

Burial ceremonies, 99-100,108-10 

carucates, 132-3 
Christianity, .16, 37, 41, 83, 86-93 
Clontarf, 63-4, 67, 98, 120 
Cnut, 42-2, 87, 101 

Daci, 10, 134 

Danegeld, 38-9, 48 

Danelagh boundaries, 27, 128-9 ; 

reconquest, 29-32 
Danes, passim 

Denmark, 5, 16, 22-3, 44, 86-7 



drengs 135-6 
Bubh-gailU 10 

Dublin, 15, 23, 33-4, 55, 59-60, 
64, 89, 103, 120-2 

East Anglia, 11, 14, 27-8, 32, 
134-5 

Eddaic poems, 2, 93-4 
Edmund Ironside, 40-1 
Edward the Elder, 29, 31 
England, invasion of, 12, 22-43 ; 

influence in, 123-37 
Eric Blood-axe, 36-7 
Ethelred the Unready, 37-40 

Faroes, 6, 98 
Fin-gaill, 10 

Five Boroughs, 11, 30, 36, 134-6 
Frisia, 15-8, 49 

France, invasions of, 17-21, 43- 

53; influence in, 138-42 
Frisians, 8 

Gaill-Gaedhil, 56, 65, 67 
Galloway, 65, 116 
Gokstad ship, 99 
Greenland, 99 

Guthrum of East Anglia, 26-7 

Hasteinn (Hastingus), 28, 44, 46, 
50 



INDEX 



149 



Hafrsfjord, 7, 56 
Hakon Aftalsteinsfostri, 35-6, 88 
Halfdanr, 22, 25, 33, 58 
Harold Bluetooth, 37, 70-2, 87 
Harold Fairhair, 7, 35, 58, 67, 142 
Harold Hardrada, 42, 81, 99 
Harold of Mainz, 16, 18-9, 86 
Heathenism, 83, 86-93 
Hebrides, 5, 60, 65, 67-8, 114 
Hiruath, 11 
holds, 135 

Horftaland, HorSai, 5, 11 
hows, 108 

Iceland, 83, 85, 117, 142-4 
Ireland, attacks on, 12-13, 15, 
54-64 ; Danes and Norsemen 
in, 54-8 ; influence in, 116-23 
Ivarr the boneless, 22, 24-5, 
57-8 

jarls, 103, 134 
Jellinge stone, 111 
J6msborg, Jomsvikings, 70-2, 98, 
102 

jury, presentation by, 136 

KetillFinn, 67 

Ketill Flatnose, 56, 67 

■lawmen, 103, 116, 136 
Limerick, 59, 62, 98, 120 
Lochlann, 10 
Ludwigslied, 47 

Madjus, 20 
Maeshowe, 23, 113 
Maldon, battle of, 38 
Man, Isle of, 12, 39, 63, 65-8, 
114-5 

nithing, 137 



Noirmoutier, 17, 19, 21 
Norsemen, Norwegians, passim 
Northumbria, 11, 24-5, 28, 33-4, 

37, 41, 60, 63, 126-8 
Normandy, 52-3, 138-42 
Norway, 7, 16 ; Christianity in, 

88-9 

Odin, 88, ,95, 115 
Ohthere, Ottarr, 96, 99 
Olaf Tryggvason, 4, 38, 87, 89, 
101 

Olaf the White, 20, 57-8, 66, 68 
ore, 133 

Orkneys, 23, 63; 65, 112-3, 117 
Ornamentation, style of, 79, 

106-7 
Ornaments, 104-6 
Oseberg ship, 99-100 
Ostmen, 122 
OKal, 67, 113 

Paris, 21, 49-50 

Place-names, influence on Scot- 
tish, 114 ; Irish, 118-9 ; Eng- 
lish, 123-9 

prime-signing, 91 

Eagnarr Lo$br6k, 21-4, 44, 57, 
102 

Ehos, 19, 47, 73-4 

ridings, 131 

Eollo, 9, 53, 103 

Kunic inscriptions, 23, 81, 85-6, 

110-1, 113-5 
Eus, 73-9 

Eussia, founding of, 73-80 

St Anskar, 70, 86 
St Edmund, 25 
St Olaf, 41, 89 
Scaldingi, 11 



150 



INDEX 



Scandinavian loan-words in Eng- 
lish, 130-1 
Sculptured stones, 91, 111, 114-5 
Seven Boroughs, 40 
Shetlands, 5, 6, 65, 112-3, 117 
Ship-burials, 99-100 
Ships, 29, 98-100 
Shires, origin of, 31 w., 134 
Sigurd of the Orkneys, 63, 66-7 
Slesvik, 15, 87, 96 
Sodor and Man, 65 
Stamford Bridge, 42 
Svftreyjar, 65 

Svein Forkbeard, 37, 39, 40, 87 
Sweden, 7, 96 
Swedes, 9, 19, 72-9 

thing, 103, 115-6 

Thor, 89, 95, 115 

Trade, character of, 96-8; Ori- 
ental, 71, 79-80 ; Kussian, 75- 
80; Irish, 120 



Turf-Einar, 67 
Turges, 13, 20 
Tynwald Court, 115 

udal and udaller, 113 

Varangians, Variags, 73, 77-9 
Vestfold, 11, 16 
Viking, the term, 1 
Viking movement, causes of, 4- 
11 

Vinland, 99 

Wavcntake, 132 
Weapons, 101-2 
Wedmore, peace of, 27 
Westfaldingi, 11 
White Foreigners, 10 
Women, position of, 54-6, 94 

York, 24, 31, 33 



cambeidge: PRINTED BY JOHN clay, m.a. at the university press. 



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Jones, M.A. 
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The Coming of Evolution. By Prof. J. W. Judd, C.B., F.R.S. 
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Primitive Animals. By Geoffrey Smith, M.A. 

The Individual in the Animal Kingdom. By J. S. Huxley, B.A. 

Life in the Sea. By James Johnstone, B.Sc. 

The Migration of Birds. By T. A. Coward. 

Spiders. By C. Warburton, M.A. 

House Flies. By C. G. Hewitt, D.Sc. 

Earthworms and their Allies. By F. E. Beddard, F.R.S. 



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The Wanderings of Peoples. By Dr A. C. Haddon, F.R.S. 
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Rocks and their Origins. By Prof. Grenville A. J. Cole. 
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Plant-Animals : a Study in Symbiosis. By Prof. F. W. Keeble. 
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The Atmosphere. By A. J. Berry, M.A. 

The Physical Basis of Music. By A. Wood, M.A. 

PSYCHOLOGY 

An Introduction to Experimental Psychology. By Dr C. S. 
Myers. 

The Psychology of Insanity. By Bernard Hart, M.D. 

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The Modern Locomotive. By C. Edgar Allen, A.M.I.Mech.E. 
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Aerial Locomotion. By E. H. Harper, M.A., and Allan E. 

Ferguson, B.Sc. 
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Brewing. By A. Chaston Chapman, F.I.C. 

SOME VOLUMES IN PREPARATION 
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The Aryans. By Prof. M. Winternitz. 

The Peoples of India. By J. D. Anderson. 

Prehistoric Britain. By L. McL. Mann. 

The Balkan Peoples. By J. D. Bourchier. 

The Evolution of Japan. By Prof. J. H. Longford. 



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The West Indies. By Sir Daniel Morris, K.C.M.G. 
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English Monasteries. By A. H. Thompson, M.A. 

A Grammar of Heraldry. By W. H. St John Hope, Litt.D. 

Celtic Art. By Joseph Anderson, LL.D. 

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Pantomime. By D. L. Murray. 

Folk Song and Dance. By Miss Neal and F. Kitson. 

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The Sun. By Prof. R. A. Sampson. 

Wireless Telegraphy. By C. L. Fortescue, M.A. 

Rontgen Rays. By Prof. W. H. Bragg, F.R.S. 

BIOLOGY 

Bees and Wasps. By O. H. Latter, M.A. 

The Life-story of Insects. By Prof. G. H. Carpenter. 

The Wanderings of Animals. By H. F. Gadow, M.A., F.R.S. 

GEOLOGY 

Submerged Forests. By Clement Reid, F.R.S. 
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INDUSTRIAL AND MECHANICAL SCIENCE 

Coal Mining. By T. C. Cantrill. 
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